


Jotun Queen

by WillJ



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7364218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillJ/pseuds/WillJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Portals are opening randomly all over Earth, allowing deadly creatures to invade the planet; Thor is sent unexpected help to help discover who or what is opening the portals and why.  The Avengers meet Loki, Thor's wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

“Left flank, Spangles,” Tony drawled laconically over the comms as he soared past the embattled Avenger below.  Twisting in mid-air, he shot at a street lamp, toppling it on the creature poised to leap on Steve’s back, and twisting again, he fired at the traffic light, making it fall on his own pursuer.   And having shook off his pursuer, he resumed taking out the flyers. 

JARVIS crisply alerted him to a pair of stranded civilians.  Angling himself in that direction, he shot a couple of diversionary charges at the creatures before landing, ensuring he had the…things full attention as he landed some feet away from the terrified civilians.   Inside his suit, he smirked tiredly.  Naturally everyone wanted a piece of the one and only Tony Stark—genius, playboy, philanthropist billionaire with the deadly good looks. 

His sharp, crisp movements belying his tiredness, Tony fired a missile straight down the gullet of the gaping maw, then shifted smoothly to direct another blast into the face of the one trying to jump him.  The scream it gave drowned out JARVIS’ calm advice to the people to run….like hell. 

Which they did.

Once he saw them take refuge in the nearby firehouse, he launched himself back into the air to resume his mission of taking out the flyers.

Because he so rarely allowed people to see past the carefully crafted image of nonchalance, many people erroneously believed Tony Stark—notorious playboy extraordinaire—truly didn’t take anything seriously, that the world was just a vast entertainment studio strictly for his amusement.   Even worse, they thought Iron Man was nothing more than another toy for the playboy.  Too much time and money on his hands that had found another new indulgence.

Those people were so very wrong, as so many of his enemies found to their cost.  

Tony was all that, and more.  He would be the first to cheerfully admit that he played hard.  And he would be the very last person to confess that he worked even harder, taking his duties as an Avenger, as a Stark—with a deadly seriousness that would shock his enemies. 

And hundreds of charities would be shocked that their mysterious benefactor that poured money into their coffers, that allowed them to help and/or expand their program was none other than Mr. Tony Stark.  But they would never know the man they spoke about so disparagingly in the public due to his spendthrift way simply because Tony didn’t do what he did for publicity.

What people failed to realize—because Tony played the reckless, shallow playboy so well—was that he was a _good_ man.  

Three was the number of people that saw behind the careless, insouciance mask he wore…Rhodey, Pepper and Natasha.  

And Natasha knew one thing—armed with money, power, charisma, and most damning of all, influence—Tony Stark was easily one of the most dangerous men on the planet. 

Natasha thought him a dangerous fool because truly good men such as Tony and Captain America had a tendency to die too soon; Pepper saw Tony as an angel come down to Earth (though she made damn sure he never got an inkling of that whimsical thought or he would have mocked her forever!).   As Rhodey had been his friend for over twenty years, there wasn’t much about Tony that surprised him.   

However, another person was slowly coming to a similar conclusion about Tony.  During the failed Chitauri invasion, Steve saw a decidedly different person than the one he initially met on the helicarrier.  Like Natasha, he knew that appearances were often very deceptive.  Tony had proved him wrong once, so he had no intention of making that same mistake.

But it was hard not to smack that manic grin off Tony’s face sometimes, the man was so exasperatingly voluble…he never stopped talking and treated everything like it was one big fat joke.

Like now…Tony maintained a certain insouciance that made it seem like the attacking creatures were no more dangerous than a mewling kitten instead of the mad howling, voracious walking pig-like creatures.  They had already eaten several of New York’s finest, critically wounded several more firemen and civilians alike and were now busily trying to do the same with the rest of the people caught on the street.     

And since the Avengers were vehemently opposed to that idea, the strange creatures were slowly being decimated. 

Ow, ow, ow, Steve thought wearily even as he absentmindedly smashed his shield into the face of one of the creatures leaping at him.  Tucking into a forward roll to leap upon the roof of a parked car, he used his position as a temporary staging point.

Gaining a momentary breather, he gave his surroundings a measured look.  In all fairness, this particular battle harder and, strangely enough, easier as the ground creatures had been accompanied by the flyers. 

Unfortunately, the Avengers only had two people with flying capability, thus had the harder job of taking out their newly arrived guests. 

On the flip side…the flyers were more than happy to take a bite out of the piggish-apelike creatures—as well as anything else that looked edible.  One had even attacked a statue, gnawing on the bronze metal.  It settled so long on the statue, futilely trying to rip metal flesh, that Thor was able come up behind it and crush its head.

Spotting several ground creatures heading his way, and inhaling one desperately needed fortifying breath, Steve threw himself back into the snarling fray.

Tony, likewise, was giving it his all.   Several feet in the air, he spotted one of the flyers up ahead overhauling a couple of screaming, fleeing pedestrians.  Letting out a few choice words, he increased his speed.  Everybody was supposed to be off the fucking streets!  Noting the big camera one of the people was lumbering around, he almost decided to let the creatures get them. 

Almost.

Goddamn paparazzi. 

“So, any info on what the Flyin’ McMonkeys are made of?” he inquired cheerfully of JARVIS, his eyes flickering rapidly over the near constant feed of info within the suit.  “Better yet, will the suit hold up to me slamming into it?  I think it will,” he added blithely.  Willfully he ignored all the dents and a couple of deep gouges in the armor from dealing with the prenaturally sharp talons of the flyers, his confidence in his own tech unshakable. 

Distant roars could be heard as the Hulk exercised his right of free expression, which generally translated to ‘Me Smash!’ and pounding on his enemies.   A simple man-Hulk with a simple, yet highly effective plan, Tony liked to say.  

“There is a high probability that both you and the creature will be incapacitated should you slam into it,” JARVIS intoned calmly.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Tony enthused.  From the onboard computer came a sound that had JARVIS been human would have been a sigh.   “Let’s show ‘em how we do it, Earth-style…wha wha!”

“Hey, Cap, so…like, me and JARVIS totally agree that ramming one of the screechers is a good idea…so, gonna ram one of these screechers,” Tony chattily drawled over the comms.  With the ease of long practice, he hid his true feelings behind the wall of inane chatter and simply braced himself for the impact.   

And pain.

That it was going to hurt like a muthafucker was a foregone conclusion that he chose to keep to himself.   One look at the desperate fear on the fleeing woman’s face and he routed more power to his repulsors to beat the screecher to them. 

He was heartless but not heartless enough to let a gorgeous woman die.  He had a weakness for stunning redheads…even if she was one of the fucking paparazzi. 

They deserved the right to be on the streets just like the next pile of dog shit. 

“Tony, wait…!” Captain America shouted into the comms just before Tony body-checked one of the flying, slamming into its hard, bony exterior with enough force that Steve winced.   While the resulting collision definitely knocked the screecher out of the air, sending it screeching and flailing to the ground…it also knocked Iron Man out of the sky as well.   

“Thor…!” Steve shouted, an element of panic in his voice.  It was a particular horror for him, seeing Tony falling from the sky…again.  It brought back memories of Tony free-falling after the Chitauri invasion which brought back memories of Bucky falling. 

Both times, it took him days to sleep as the nightmare keep replaying each time he closed his eyes.   Only in his nightmares, there was no Hulk to save Tony and Tony became lost like he lost Bucky.

“I see him, friend Steven,” Thor replied grimly as he shook off several of the screechers trying futilely to take a bite out of his armor.   Instead of his usual light casual armor, he had called in his armor used in battle.   

It covered more.

Whirling his hammer, he quickly made his way to his falling ally and caught him.  And position above the downed flyer, his eyes were caught by something unusual.   Swiftly he brought both he and the Man of Iron to the ground to take a closer look.

Tony wobbled when his feet touched ground.  He groaned inside the suit, dropping to one knee as he held a hand to his aching head.   He was pretty sure he had a concussion...make that damn sure.

Too bad his head wasn’t the only thing hurting.  He was pretty sure he had a couple of cracked if not broken ribs.  Carefully he breathed, wincing at the sharp bite of pain.  “Anyone get the number of the planet that hit me?” he groused softly.  Inside the suit, his eyes flickered rapidly over the flickering, static display in the headpiece.   “Hey, JARVIS, get up, ya lazy bum!  You know Spangles runs a tight ship.  No lollygagging, you hear?” 

“My apologies, Sir,” JARVIS replied ever calm, though Steve thought he detected a note of drollness in the A.I.’s tone.  “I shall endeavor to refrain from lollying and or gagging.”

“That’s the Navy, Tony.” Steve gave a Tony-sigh as expected, neatly hiding his knee-weakening relief the tech genius was okay.  Privately he compared Tony to one of those tiny, yapping dogs.  Annoying as hell, but they grew on you. 

Smoothly he threw his shield in a precise move that managed to take out five…Short McNasties.  A reluctant grin curved his lips as he used the name Tony coined. 

There had been well over fifty of the creatures including the screeching flyers.  The creatures were fast, agile and extremely vicious.  Like Tasmanian devils on steroids. 

Thankfully the only thing that gave them the advantage was the fact that the ground creatures and the flyers were of different species that considered each other just as much prey as they apparently considered humans.

“We’re getting the last ones,” came the Widow’s laconic voice over the comms.

“Whaddaya mean ‘we’…?” Hawkeye replied indignantly even as he rolled onto his back to take out a screecher angling for a bite out of his moist and delicious hide.  “There’s me up top, doing what I do best, and you just calmly strolling around below, trying to look pretty.  Always trying to horn in on my kills,” he groused with a smile.

Natasha tucked into a roll to avoid a vicious blow from one of the three fierce ground creatures and used her Stingers to good effect on the bend of one of the creature’s leg, bringing it down even as she pushed off from the ground into a forward flip that neatly took her over another one of the creature’s head.  It was a pity she found out about the soft spot just at the crown of its head.  It pretty much immobilized the creature.  Which, incidentally, allowed her to neatly finish the job. 

“This is so not a stroll nor a park…” she stated flatly, ducking to avoid the downed creature’s claws and, using her boot knife, came up and did a precise job of gutting it. 

That was another thing…all the creatures were seriously cannibalistic.  Make one bleed and any one of them in the vicinity would fight each other for the fresh meat.

This was no exception.

“God, that’s just nasty,” Clint complained loudly over the comm as he watched the remaining one of Nat’s creature plunge its face in the other creature’s wounded belly while its fellow squealed and flailed in pain as its guts were ripped out and swallowed whole.  The creature gorging itself didn’t even bother lifting its head too far which allowed Clint take careful aim and let fly.  

Nat sighed tiredly as she sprinted away in search of more creatures.  Knowing her partner, she ducked around the safety of a car just before the exploding arrow rained bloody flesh around her.   Taking a deep breath, she pushed away from the car just as another creature came into view.

 

 

Battle finally over, Steve jogged to where Thor and Tony were back to crouching over one of the bony screechers, picking at the thing’s exoskeleton.  

The Asgardian’s face was grim when he stood up.

“Problem?” Steve said briskly as he slowed to an unhurried walk.  Long experience taught him the value of resting when you can.

“Most assuredly,” Thor replied, his face still grim.  “I must return to Asgard and speak with my Father.”  Mouth opened to shout for Heimdall to open the BiFrost, his brow furrowed as the clouds began to roil overhead.  Then from the dark, massed clouds a beam of light slammed into the ground with such impact a cloud of dust billowed softly in the air.

The light vanished and standing in the rune-etched circle stood a tall being staring at them.

No…at Thor, Steve realized.  He glanced at their Asgardian ally and saw that Thor was staring just as fixedly as the alien.

The Avengers looked on, blatant curiosity on their faces, Thor swiftly closed the distance between him and the newcomer. 

Then Thor did something they had never seen before.  He dropped to one knee. 

Grasping the hand of the newcomer, Thor brought it to his lips.  “My Consort,” he said huskily, his head bowed over the slim blue hand he held in his hard, callus palm.

“Lord Husband…” was said utterly without care or inflection as the newcomer’s long-fingered hand was raised to Thor’s lips.

Unseen by all, there was a pained look on the Thunderer’s face.  By the time Thor rose, he had himself well in hand, his face bearing a genial smile.  “Loki, may I introduce you to my companions?”  If his eyes looked a little strained around the edges…no one knew him well enough to notice.  

“If you must…” Loki remarked bored disinterest.  On his face was a look of patent indifference

 as he slipped his hand under Thor’s.  Every inch royal princes of ancient dynasties, they strolled calmly to where the Avengers waited with visibly strained patience.   

“Heimdall reported to the All-Father of the creatures you faced, so the Queen mother ‘suggested’ I join you as I may be of some help.”  Thor and Loki exchanged twin looks of long-suffering, united in their feelings for the Queen Mother. 

It was quietly understood that Frigga’s gentle ‘suggestions’ were ignored at one’s one peril.   Even the All-Father himself, made haste to comply when his lady wife ‘suggested’ a course of action.  Naturally he pretended it was his idea, but no one was fooled.

Reaching his companions, and with a proud look on his face, Thor gestured and cheerfully named each one individually.  “The one encased in the metal suit is Tony, son of Stark, this fair lady is named Natasha Romanov, the archer is Clint, son of Barton, the blonde warrior is Steven, son of Rogers and the ragged man coming towards us is friend Banner.”

Thor glanced around at the curious faces and half-turned to bow to Loki.  “And this is my Consort, Prince Loki of Asgard, by way of Jotunheim.”

The Avengers were silent as they regarded the stranger Thor just introduced.  Tall and slim, he was built more like a swimmer—broad shoulders, narrow, tapered hips and long, corded legs.  However, unlike Thor, he could never be mistaken for human. 

The crimson eyes and long, graceful curing horns adorning his head totally gave it away.

That and the fact he was blue.  It was a pretty blue, but still, humans generally didn’t come in that color.

“So…you’re like gay?” Tony said in the taut silence, looking at a perplexed Thor.  Steve calmly reached over and slapped the bearded inventor upside his head.  Tony looked highly indignant.  “Oh, come on!  You know you were all thinking it!”

Loki regarded the humans with cool eyes before his eyes settled on the sole female.  There was a slight degree of interest in those red eyes.   And it was strangely unsettling to be the focus of such attention.  Though by Natasha’s expression she was unphased.  “I have heard of you, you are the one also known as the Black Widow.  I know of the Midgard arachnid, the black widow.  Do you likewise kill and consume your paramours after a successful mating?”

Both Clint and Tony let out a loud guffaws, while Steve and Bruce looked vaguely amused.   Natasha’s only allowed herself a tiny quirk of her lips. 

It was Thor’s look of acute distress that caused Steve and the others to lose their amusement but it was too late.

Loki’s face went still, his eyes iced over.  He inclined his head slightly to Natasha, an aristocrat amongst the dregs of society, so haughty was his disdain.  “Your pardon, Lady Romanov.”  Thor sighed soundlessly at the cold, proud set of his consort’s shoulders.  

Steve stepped forward, a welcoming smile on his face as he stretched out his hand.   He didn’t understand the bleak look of amusement that bloomed in Prince Loki’s crimson eyes. 

“Please forgive…” His hand was violently knocked away by Thor, who turned to stare at his spouse with sad, reproachful eyes.

Thor heaved a disappointed sigh.  “Loki…”

“I would not have harmed him…much,” Loki replied coolly, but his eyes spoke malice.

The blond Asgardian sighed again, turning to his friends.  “Loki hails from Jotunheim.  To touch the naked skin of a Jotun is akin to the killing bite of winter.”

Beneath his All-American tan, Steve paled.  There were nights where he woke, remembering the frigid grasp of cold that had frozen his flesh and sank vicious claws in his soul.  Nights where even a near scalding hot shower failed to warm him; where he wandered the Tower restlessly until the sun broke over the city.

Refusing to give into his fear, it was with a herculean effort that he met the eerie, claret gaze.  “You would have killed me?”

The other Avengers stirred restlessly at this. 

Loki stared into the blue eyes so very like his husband.  Looking beyond the blue gaze, deep into the heart of the human, he saw a shard of ice that glowed with a gentle, luminous light deep within the human’s core.  “No…I do not think I could harm you,” he said slowly, his mind unsettled by what his seidr gaze saw.

Steve blinked, looked uncertainly at Thor who was looking equally confused before looking back at Prince Loki.  “Uhm, thank you?” he replied hesitantly.

The Jotun prince graciously inclined his head.  “You…you are a…” and said a phrase that sounded like rocks grinding against each other.   “Honor be with you,” he added, with a gracious inclination of his proud head.

Thor looked at Loki then askance at his human ally.  “Truly?”

Loki gave his husband a veiled, narrow glance.  “You doubt me?” he asked silkily, cold menace in his voice. 

Hastily Thor backtracked.  “Never!  It is as you say.”

Tony leaned towards Clint and made a sound of a whip cracking.   Clint snickered softly.

“You shall take me to where I shall rest,” Loki ordered imperiously to Thor.  Red eyes regarded Tony thoughtfully with all the warmth of a bug collector with an interesting specimen.  “Mortal…!  You shall collect one of each of the _clikos_ and the _tilukus_.”

“Excuse you?” Tony’s brows shot up, unused to be ordered in such a presumptuous fashion.   

“The flying creatures and the ground creatures,” Loki said impatiently.  He said in an audible voice, “Are all mortalkind so witless and slow?”

Thor hastily clasped his wife around the waist before whirling his hammer and launched them skyward.  Faintly they could hear Thor remonstrating Prince Loki.

Natasha thoughtfully watched as the pair faded from view.  She did not miss Prince Loki’s rigidness when Thor touched him.

 

 

Fury stood, hands clasp behind his back as he stared out the window of his office.  The computer screen was paused on a recording of the new arrival.  “So, there’s a new player and he’s, what, Thor’s…husband?” 

“Wife, sir,” Natasha corrected him without inflection.  “Thor introduced Prince Loki as his wife.  I have not been able to posit a reasonable theory as to why ‘wife’ instead of ‘husband’.  Clearly they are of different races, but other than that and his touch is capable of freezing, if not killing, a person, I have not been able to gather more intel,” Natasha replied calmly.  She hesitated before voicing her suspicions with care.  “I do believe there is some…tension that exist between the two that can, perhaps be exploited.”  She stood inside Fury’s office making her report.  She and Clint usually split the task on joint missions.  He was slightly better at writing up the report while she was much better at giving a verbal report to Fury.

Turning from the window, Fury fixed a hard cyclopean stare on the deceptive looking red-head.  Natasha didn’t blink, her face calm and ever impassive in the face of the unsettling gaze.  “Get in his head, Widow,” he ordered with level softness.  “The world’s changing almost faster than we can keep up.  Yesterday, we landed on the moon; today, aliens are landing on our world and are strolling the streets of New York.”

“Understood, sir,” Natasha inclined her head, a bland look upon her too beautiful face.  

Fury returned his gaze back to the window in silent dismissal.

The hairs on the back of his neck slowly eased…the only sign a dangerous predator had left.

 

 

 

Tony dumped the two creatures he hauled back onto a table in a room he had JARVIS repurpose for the tall, blue guy. 

Who…was not so blue.  Tony stared wide-eyed at the tall, pale guy in the black leather pants and deep green tunic busily arranging the creature on the table.  “Weren’t you…kinda blue about forty minutes ago?” he said slowly.

Loki didn’t bother looking at the mortal, more interested in the _clikos_ and the _tilukus._    “My lord husband commanded I change skin to Aesir, as he would be most overwrought should harm to his friends,” he replied calmly, a hidden sneer on his lips.   Stretching out a hand, he called in a pair of fletching knives.

“Whoa…!” Tony exclaimed and backed away hastily when Tall, Dark and Interestingly Pale pulled pair of knives from thin air.  “Where did you get those?”

Making a precise cut, Loki dragged the blade from the creature’s sternum to its anus.   “Did not my lord instruct you that I am a _seidrman_?  No…?  Do you but go ask, he shall most assuredly tell you.”  Using magic, he anchored one side of the creature before he cracked it open. 

“No…!” Tony replied indignantly, recognizing a tactic he employed when he didn’t want to be bothered with questions.  “And ew…!” he added, referring to the way Loki cracked the creature’s chest and was plunging his hands into the cavity.  “Fine….I’ll shut up,” he groused at the flat stare from the other’s green eyes.

Loki peered at the creatures insides and hissed in surprised at what he saw.  He extracted a large, round ball that gleamed with a sickly light.   “Someone is playing with dangerous forces,” he said calmly, eyes alight with deepening interest. 

“Ooooooh,” Tony grinned excitedly, his eyes wide like a child with a new toy.  He adopted a heroic pose, arms akimbo and chin proudly lifted while his eyes gazing out into the distance.  “This is a job for…The Science Bros!” 

JARVIS helpfully added a fading echo of ‘bros’. 

Tony rubbed his hands briskly, ready to start making science.

Loki stared in chilly fashion at the strange mortal.

“I have informed Dr. Banner his presence is requested,” JARVIS said calmly as Tony bustled about the lab.

“So whaddaya need?” Tony asked chattily as he busied himself scanning the creatures into a holographic projection.  “If I ain’t got it, I can get it.   Gotta tell ya, it’ll be cool having another Science Bro around!  Don’t tell Brucie, but he’s kinda…” Tony glanced around shiftily, “boring.  He never takes chances and won’t let me either.  What kinda scientist don’t take chances, I ask you,” Tony asked aggrievedly.  He stared expectantly at Loki, sensing another risk-taking, kindred spirit. 

Bruce, arriving upon the heels of Tony’s inane babble to Prince Loki, remarked dryly, “The kind that would like to see tomorrow.”

Tony spun around, flinging his arms wide with a wild, delighted grin.  “Brucie…!” he caroled, rich brown eyes glittering with excitement and anticipation.

“Tony…” Bruce drawled in an understated though similar vein.  Still there was a smile hidden in his calm brown eyes. 

One that Tony still struggled to pull from the quiet, unassuming scientist.  Years of being chased, hunted like an animal, treated as something subhuman had left an indelible mark on the quiet, retiring radiation scientist.  Of a shy, introverted nature, Bruce Banner had retreated deeper into a shell of loneliness.  Tony wished he could go back in time and beat the living shit out of everyone that had convinced Bruce he was nothing more than a mindless, raging beast.     

But since time travel was currently undiscovered (but he was working on it) he made it his mission to make Bruce smile and laugh, fill him with enough joy and memories to last a lifetime.

Loki looked at the two mortals, his eyes cool.  He well remembered their laughter.  “No…you shall leave me to my work,” he said, once again surrounding himself in icy hauteur.  

Tony whirled around, his smile dimming.  “Uh, no…you’re about to do some shit we ain’t seen before….Hell yeah, I wanna watch!  And help if you need it.”  He shrugged, seemingly careless, but there was hope in his eyes.

“What he said…but without the superlatives,” Bruce said wryly, tendering a shy, yet equally hopeful smile at the alien prince. 

Eyes the color of grass eyes looked upon the mortals with cool disdain.  He remembered Frigga’s gentle advice, but she didn’t know, didn’t understand that he couldn’t risk himself.  Not again.   “Mortals?  Help me?” he said with frigid politeness before gifting them with a vicious smile he used with great effect on the importune fools in court that thought to build a reputation at his expense.  He was pleased it had the same effect on these mortals as to make them flinch.   “Surely you jest…!”

Save for the Queen Frigga, he had been without allies in the Asgard court, counting on no one for help.  Those that thought him easy prey quickly learned otherwise. 

He needed no one…least of all, he sneered silently, companions and followers of his dear husband.

 

 

Later in the day, Thor looked up with a frown at the brilliant flash of light just before the building quivered gently.   “Who comes…?” he muttered to himself, momentarily ignoring his teammates’ exclamations surprise.  “I know not,” he shrugged at the inquiring looks from the others.

Then his heart sank as he picked up the distinctive tread of one person he strove to keep apart from his wife. 

With the ease of long practice, he hid his dismay as Sif strode into view.  “Lady Sif, what a pleasant surprise,” he said forced cheer, struggling to keep his expression from showing his true view of the situation.  From the twinkle in Volstagg and Fandral’s eyes, he suspected them of engaging in mischief.   A mischief aimed at discomforting Loki.

Thor wondered when they would give over trying to bait Loki.

Sif eyed Thor with little change of her stern expression, still there was a minute softening of her eyes.  “Modi has been having difficulties of late,” she said calmly.  “Although your good mother tries, he feels the lack of your presence.”  Though she shrugged casually, her eyes were sharp on his face, a faint look of sad accusation in her expression.  “He longs for your presence and cannot understand why yet you while away your time on Midgard.” 

Thor rubbed wearily at his temple.  “Sif, you and I have spoken of this at length.  It was you that refused to let the boy accompany me to Midgard!”

Looking affronted at this accusation, Sif exclaimed, “And deprive myself of the company of my only child?”

“When said child spends the majority of his time with tutors, the Queen and anyone else you would pawn him off…one would think you would be more than happy to allow Thor to spend time with the boy,” drawled a silky smooth baritone.

Natasha noted with interest how the tall dark-haired warrior’s face visibly tightened, anger warring with wariness before both emotions vanished.  Silently she nodded her head, the intricate pieces of the puzzle taking shape.   

“Dear Prince Loki…what a surprise,” Fandral drawled without straightening from his lazy sprawl.  A courtier of long standing, he easily wore the mask of amused affability over his true emotion.  “Froze any balls lately?”

The Avengers looked on with carefully neutral expressions.  There was little love lost between Thor’s two camps of friends.

Loki looked immensely bored.   His voice was careless as he retorted, “Only yours, but considering the size, I rather doubt anyone noticed.” 

For a brief instant, Fandral looked every bit as dangerous as Loki.

“Prince Loki, I did not know you were had accompanied Thor,” Sif said stiffly.  Face rigid with any effort, she stood proudly before the Jotun prince. 

Loki pushed off from the doorway and sauntered further into the room.  Sidling up to Thor, he twined his arms around one brawny limb and nuzzled into Thor’s side with every appearance of loving comfort.  The Asgardian prince stiffened apprehensively.  Whenever his consort displayed affection in public, it generally did not brood well for anyone.

Especially him.

When Loki looked at the sole female warrior, there was a poisonous smile on his face solely for her.  “But where else would I be but at my dear lord husband’s side and his bed?”  His smile widened the tiniest bit at the flash of pain in the woman’s dark eyes. 

Tony was eating potato chips and watching the Asgardians.  This, in his opinion, was what reality TV needed to strive for because damn, you could practically see the knives and taste the poison.  For the first time, he understood the word ‘vitriol’. 

Sif, however, was not one to admit defeat easily or give way in face of opposition.  “Perhaps I imagined you hovering at someone’s bedside,” she replied with a smile equally poisonous.   

The Jotun prince’s smile widened, cruelty glittering in his eyes.  “The only bedside I would bestir myself to hover about would be yours, dear Lady Sif.  It would remind me of home.”

Clint sucked in a delighted, shocked breath.  “Ohhhh…burn,” he whispered sotto voice to Tony, who nodded excitedly.

“Why you…” Only by Hogun’s quick reflexes was Sif caught in time.   He whirled her around and whispered harshly in her ear, giving her a shake when she seemed reluctant to listen.

Separating himself from Thor, Loki watched the Warrior Four with a look of amused disdain.  Only Natasha noted the subtle tension in the Jotun prince’s lean frame.  The picture was becoming clear.  There was something else going on, a long-standing fight for either Thor’s attention or something else.   A delicate frown pulled lightly at her brows.  But there was something…off about Thor’s reaction.

“This is so awesome…” A wide-eyed Tony whispered to Clint who nodded enthusiastically, likewise eating Tony’s chips.  Steve cast both, stern disapprove that they ignored with ease. 

Sif gradually calmed, listening to her fellow warrior.  But she was far from done.  She couldn’t restrain herself from one last parting shot.  “I go to see to our son, my prince,” she said to Thor, sliding a triumphant look at Loki’s decidedly unimpressed face.   Thor winced, but gamely faced his long-time friend.  And former paramour.  “’Tis a pity your wife has not yet birthed a child, Modi would much enjoy being an older brother.”  Loki crossed his arms and simply waited the mewling quim out. 

She thought herself clever…and if one compared her to a plank of wood, then yes, she was indeed quite clever.    

She gave Loki a look of badly feigned sympathy.  “Perhaps someday soon, you shall feel life stirring in your womb and know the joy of gifting your husband with a son.”  The look she cast Loki left no room for doubt as to that possibility of that happening anytime soon from Loki’s icy womb.  It was an open secret that the two royal princes had not occupied a bedchamber in several decades.

Loki slid a look at Thor but other than looking pained at her words, Thor said nothing.  Green eyes glittered before they were hooded.

“Farewell, Lady Sif…tell Modi I shall see him as soon as I return to Asgard,” Thor said, striving for diplomacy.  He gave a sidelong glance at his wife.  As always Loki’s impassive face gave him no answers, leaving him to fumble his way to a place of safety.

Fandral smirked, turning to Prince Loki.  “Fare thee well, Prince Loki of the Frozen,” his glance dropped significantly to Loki’s groin then back to his face, “Lands of Jotunheim.”  If he hoped for some reaction, it was in vain. 

Regally Loki inclined his head.  “And you as well.”  Then his lips curled in cruel amusement.  Fandral stiffened, his eyes narrowing.  “By the by, I believe congratulations are in order for you…Lady Nifva is with child.”  His smile widened at the look of absolute horror that overtook the foppish dandy’s face.   Mockingly he fluttered his fingers at the golden-haired lord.  “Hogun, Lord Volstagg, I bid thee good day.”

There was a flash of light and the Warriors Four were gone.

Thor sighed, scrubbed his face wearily.  “Must you always bait them?”

Loki froze, his face going still. 

The Avengers stilled as well, looking from Loki to Thor with varying expressions of confusion. 

Face blank, Loki inclined his head to Tony.  It was clear that he was ignoring Thor.  “Mayhaps, I might be shown to my room?”

“Yeah, right…” With an unreadable glance at Thor, Tony raised his voice slightly.  “Hey, JARVIS, could you show Prince Loki to the twelfth floor and the Green room?”  Like Loki, he ignored the surprised look on Thor’s face.  “I kinda think you’ll like the room.”

“Friend Tony, I am on the fourteenth floor,” Thor said in a troubled voice, confused voice.  “I have more than sufficient room.”

For a few seconds, Loki wore a look of wary surprise, before his face subtly eased.  He bowed carefully to the mortal.  “Thank you,” he said simply before silently striding from the room to JARVIS calm instructions.

The room was quiet after he left.

The silence was broken by Tony. 

He sighed and relaxed back against the couch.  “You know, I kinda thought Loki was the original ice queen,” he stated with such frank honesty that there was an immediate outcry from Steve.

Thor frowned, his blue eyes visibly confused.  “Nay, I believe I said Loki was a prince.  He shall not be queen until I ascend the throne.”

“No, I meant…nevermind,” Tony sighed.  He wondered why he even bothered sometimes with Thor.

“Ah, my understanding was faulty.” Thor made a face.  Mortal speech was so confusing at the best of times, it was moreso with this particular quick-witted ally.  Often, dealing with the son of Stark reminded him of Loki. 

He sighed, looking down at his hands before taking a deep breath.  “It...was not always like this.”

The Widow looked at her comrade with cool eyes.  “Like what?”

“I was not always solicitous of others and their happiness or safety,” he admitted painfully.  “Once, I was a greedy, thoughtless boy who care little about anyone’s comfort but mine own.  I was a young fool and I greatly valued my freedom…I made many grievous mistakes for which I have found no way to atone.  I did not wish to marry much less a Jotun, Asgard’s ancient enemies.”

He looked up, somber blue eyes meeting those of his allies’.  “To the shame of my parents, I made my feelings known to the entire court.  I…treated my wife woefully cruel.   Rather than treating with him as an equal, a partner, I behaved like a spoiled, spiteful child.  Bedding him then discarding him for more ‘appropriate’ bedmates.  I flaunted them in his face until my queen Mother spoke most sharply to me of her distaste at my behavior.”  

Thor stirred restlessly, his hand opening and closing as if around something.   Tony guessed uneasy that that something was that fucking hammer…either that or somebody’s throat.  He preferred the hammer idea.

“Where I should have defended him, I allowed others to make mock of him.  My actions, or lack thereof, made him this way.  So should you have words to say or disdain to speak of for Loki’s poor behavior…blame lies solely upon my shoulders.”   

Though Tony smiled, it was in no way reflected in his eyes.  “Yeah, no worries on that score,” he said assuredly.  “Cause, I gotta tell ya, if Rhodey ever talked shit about Pepper the way your friends talked shit about Loki, two things would have happened.  One, my fist would have been down his throat and I sure as hell would NOT call him my friend.”

Thor looked up, his expression perplexed.  “Do speak plain, friend Tony.  What do you say?”

Looking profoundly exasperated, Tony threw his hands up in the air and surged to his feet, unable to keep still.   “The fuck…?  Sif basically called Loki cold and barren because you ain’t tapping his ass; she fuckin’ rubbed it in his face that you knocked her up and not him, then that fuckin’ tool called Loki a frozen bitch and not only did you blame Loki for handling his shit like a fuckin’ boss, you didn’t say a goddamn thing to defend him!”

Angry and disturbed by the looks of condemnation from his allies, Thor protested loudly, “Nay!  My friends are true to me!  They would never…”

“Your friends are a bunch of bitches and assholes,” Clint casually tossed out.

Thor’s mouth worked.  He turned to Steve, his expression desperate for truth.  “Friend Steve…?”  There was an unsettled look on the Thunderer’s face.

Steve stirred uncomfortably and spoke with visible reluctance.  “Thor, we…we don’t know how your friends and Loki got along in the past, all we can judge is what we saw today.  Your friends were hostile and verbally attacked Loki.  He retaliated…when you didn’t defend him.”

“My friends are ever loyal and true!” Thor surge angrily to his feet and glared at his allies. 

“No one is saying your friends aren’t loyal and true…to you; they are just not loyal or true to Loki,” Natasha responded calmly. 

“They jest,” Thor protested, his eyes desperate.

Holding his eyes, Natasha slowly shook her head. 

Without looking at anyone, Steve took a deep breath and said quietly, “I remember Bucky had met this dame that he thought he was in love with, I thought she was just out for a good time and said some unkind things about her.”  He looked uncomfortable at the memory.  “Bucky yelled at me and then refused to talk to me for a month.  The thing is, she made him happy.”  He ducked his head, a smile of remembrance curving his lips.  “And once I got to know her, she made a swell friend.”

Tony nodded, though he was privately amazed that ole Apple Pie actually brought himself to be rude to a chick.   “Imagine how you would feel if Loki’s friends were throwing shit at you every time you saw them and then Loki turned around and blamed you.”

Thor frowned, his expression troubled.  “I…yes, it would not be a good feeling,” he finally said reluctantly. 

“And if you’re trying to make things right and work on your marriage, it doesn’t help having your friends in your ear doggin’ out your wife,” Clint said emphatically. 

That got nods all around.

“You…you have given me much to think about,” Thor replied in a low, distressed voice. 

And in the room assigned to him, Loki stood before the mirror in his room.  His face was empty of all expression as the scrying spell on the mirror faithfully rendered the conversation amongst his lord husband’s companions.  Almost without conscious volition, his lip curled in a sneer of contempt as he turned away.

His lord husband must want something from these mortals for him to continue to play the role of dutiful, maligned husband.

Only a little while longer, Loki thought with a mix of relief and happiness, and he would be free.    


	2. Chapter 2

The next day the Avengers were called out on another mission, a second portal had opened, spilling another type of creature onto the streets of Miami, Florida. 

Half a dozen tourists and natives stood gaping at the creatures.  Predictably, there were dozens of camera phones whipped out, taking pictures and shooting videos of the weird-looking creatures. 

It was only when the large, wolf-size creatures began snarling that some of the gawkers remembered the commonsense of their ancestry and carefully, albeit rapidly, made haste to get to a place of safety, roughly dragging their more idiot and protesting companions with them. 

Or leaving them, if they were extremely stupid.

Several dozen black, large creatures stood staring at the humans until a small atavistic memory woke in the humans, a memory where they once were little more than prey.   

Head lowering, feathery hackles rose slowly on the creatures before one of them lifted its wedge-shaped head skyward and from its throat a sound flowed—a weird amalgamation of a trill and howl.   

The humans, with screams of panic and terror, abruptly broke.

The creatures began to hunt. 

Humans ran screaming from the fleet-footed _yuslka._

Native to an outlying region on one of Jotunheim’s satellite worlds, _yuslka’s_ were the top predators of that world.  Before the Jotuneheim/Asgard war, for a brief time, it had been considered a Rite of Passage for a party of Jotun to journey to that world to earn a name for themselves, to prove their worthiness as a warrior.

But it took skill, specialized skill, to effectively hunt and battle a _yuslka_

Unfortunately, most Warrior-born Jotun just did not come equipped.

Furthermore, the _yuslka’s_ had developed a similar ‘sport’…hunting the clever two-leggers.

And saw a resumption of a sport they had so enjoyed…as well as fresh meat on the hoof, so to speak. So with loud, happy trills, they began the hunt.

For despite their feathery-looking bodies, _yuslka_ were extremely efficient hunters. Intelligent and ruthless as only top predators can be, a small pack of three to five members could easily pull down prey the size of a juvenile elephant. 

 

Only Clint’s fast reflexes saved Tasha from getting her head bitten off. “Thanks,” she gasped into the comm as she wiggled out from the creature’s dead weight.

“Don’t mention it,” Clint responded absently as he fired another arrow from his high vantage point.

Meanwhile, back at the Avengers Tower, Loki huffed as no one was responding to his increasingly impatient summons. Arms crossed, an expression of extreme vexation on his face, he asked, with curt politeness, “Invisible One, where is the yammering one?”

JARVIS responded promptly, “Sir and the others were called out several hours ago. Another portal has opened and they are attempting, with limited success, to stop the creatures that had exited the portal.”

Loki’s brows contracted in a frown. “Show me,” he ordered politely. He had no grudge against the mortal’s invisible servant. In fact, JARVIS was most courteous and helpful; they had many interesting discussions. 

Unlike its foolish, impertinent master. 

A screen flicked on. Upon seeing what was happening, Loki made an impatient sound and vanished. 

 

Steve fell back onto the ground. Gritting his teeth, he fought to keep the snapping jaws of the creature away from his throat. “A little help down here,” he shouted breathlessly into the comms. He jerked his head to the side before renewing his grip. Though his suit was thick and padded, made with some of the best materials Tony knew, he was starting to feel the scrambling claws.

Then the creature gave a loud yelp, stiffened and collapse on him. Steve let out a muffled grunt at the sudden weight then it was lifted away from him. Gasping, he looked up into a blue, irritated face. The creature dangled from one outstretched hand without even a hint of strain on the part of the Jotun’s prince.

“Where is your bearded mouthy mortal or the raging green ogre? The Science Bros?” At the last part, Loki’s voice became hesitant.

“Trust me, he’s not mine,” Steve panted out dryly as he climbed to his feet. “If he were, I would have duct-taped his mouth along time ago,” he added, honest regret in his voice. 

“I heard that! Loki! Dude…! My favorite, jolly blue not-giant!” Tony landed, skidding to a halt besides the two. Twisting, he blasted one of the bristling wolf-cat like creatures springing towards them.

“You! Bearded one,” Loki said imperiously, dismissing the blonde not-Thor to address the other mortal. Almost absentmindedly, he discarded the creature he still by tossing it over his shoulder. Steve winced at the thud it made. 

His eyes widened to see it stagger back to its feet, shake its head before eyeing their little group with more than just interest. He may not be able to read alien but he most certainly knew a pissed-off face. 

“I require several items to finish my testing. You shall procure them immediately.” There was a near sneer on Loki’s lips that clearly said he didn’t think much in way of Midgard’s resources.

Rather than respond, Tony rapidly fired his repulsors at the creatures that apparently seemed to find them more than a little interesting. More began arriving in short notice and soon they were surrounded. The predators began a sideways stalk, their tails lashing slowly from side to side. 

Steve hurtled his shield—which managed to neatly nail one of the animals, ricochet off a nearby building to take out another creature—and was back at the ready standing back to back, shield in hand, with Tony.

Experts in stalking, maneuvering their prey to the right position, the other _yuslka_ continued their stalking circular pattern, effortlessly weaving around each other. 

Four of the creatures leaped, razor claws at the ready.

Loki blinked, stepped in front of the two Avengers and began his own dance with both seidr and ice dagger. 

Body bending backward, twisting to the side, he flowed back up in a twisting, graceful fashion and fetched up behind one of the creature. He planted an ice dagger firmly in its side. His hair seemed to dance in the wind of his motion as he continued his nearly seamless movement with an outstretched hand from which seidr glowed and blasted two more creatures back into their brethren. The other landed neatly on the other side of him…where Loki finished his dance by planting an ice lance firmly in the creature’s side. 

In ages past, when those whose veins coursed with seidr, hunted with their Warrior-born brethren, always were risk minimized and trophies brought back. Though not the warriors those born to it, in their own right, the seidr masters of Jotunheim were a force to be reckoned with.

Tony and Steve gaped silently at Loki, gazed at the four down creatures then back at Loki. Tony looked at Steve, his face plainly asking What the HELL?! To which Steve had no answer.

Turning to face the remaining _yuslkas_ Loki growled low in his throat. 

The reaction was instant. Every last one of the wolf-cat creatures stopped their snarling and oriented on him. Which meant the creatures’ attention was focused solely also on Tony and Steve.

“This can’t be good,” Tony breathed in the suddenly tensed atmosphere. Shooting the mortals a puzzled glance, Loki stepped forward and a series of trill-like sounds emerged from his throat. 

Cocking their heads to the sides, the creatures sat on their hunches then the largest of them ambled forward and sat as well. Lifting its snout it opened its mouth and similar sounds emerged. Back and forth went Loki and the creature before the conversation ceased.

Thor landed next to Loki, who immediately, and calmly, moved away. The Thunderer struggled to hide his feelings at his wife’s telling behavior. His Asgardian friends advised him many times to give up trying to please Loki; his new mortal friends cautioned him to patience. The mortals’ advice was much akin to his lady mother.

“Someone is playing a dangerous game in opening portals and allowing such creatures—by the All-Father’s decree—entrance to your world. So far, the ones entering your world have not been too dangerous,” Loki concluded with a look of severe disapproval on his fine-boned face, “but eventually, the one responsible may open a portal to the wrong world.”

“Aye,” Thor said, nodding his blond head in agreement. “While I do not recognize these creatures before us, as I am not a Sky-Treader of such unparalleled skill as my wife, however, there are fell creatures worse than these that I would mislike to see upon this realm,” he added darkly.

Though Loki tried not to show it, it was clear he was startled by Thor’s compliment. It lead Steve to wonder if Thor ever said anything nice about his…about Loki. Steve wanted to call Loki Thor’s wife, but his mind just couldn’t make the transition. 

Tony felt a cold shock as the big creature look back and forth, clearly following their conversation. There was a terrifying look of intelligence in those strange, blood-red oblong eyes. 

It gave a low, throaty moan at which Loki turned to look at it with raised brows. He made several growls then a low, melodic trill to which the creature responded with similar trills. 

The prince nodded before turning back to the others.

“She says that they were hunting for food as the Warming Time was soon to begin—they would retreat below surface—and her hunting group had just spotted prey. When they leaped to bring it down, a portal opened in front of them and they landed in this world,” Loki reported faithfully. 

The large animal-like creature then uttered several trill like noises of varying notes. The space between shimmered. Loki looked utterly thrilled and fascinated. “Oh…! She has seidr…” he exclaimed softly as he looked at the shimmering picture of an icy, beautiful vista. 

Then he frowned, eyes narrowing. He snarled, and this time the Avengers caught the questioning note to which the other barked sharply.

Loki and the creature stared at one another then he and the creature stared in turn at the Avengers. “Seidr users, no matter how adept they think they are, frequently leave traces of their magic, oriented to their homeworld. As far as I know,” he added stress to the last word, “there has been only one seidr user who has been able to use seidr without leaving a trace of their homeworld.” Despite the urgency of the problem, Natasha thought she detected a faint hint of smugness in the prince’s eyes before he continued. 

“Queen Dances-On-Ice-Under-Moonlight’s identified one of the magic users as bearing a similar trace of Midgard. The other, she believes is from…Asgard.”

Thor stiffened, his eyes accusatory when he looked at Loki. His wife eyes’ glinted before thin lips curled in a twisted smile lacking even the rudiments of humor. 

Steve stiffened as well, seeing the look on Thor’s face. Without looking away from Thor, he asked calmly of the Jotun prince, “You’re a seidr user, right? Do you know of someone from Asgard capable of doing something like this?”

Loki looked at the blond mortal in some surprise. There was a tiny frown on his face as he cast a look around at the other mortals. Usually the oaf’s friends were quick to blame him no matter the circumstances. As if since he was in the near vicinity, he was the source of the disruption.

Though Thor’s face was expressionless, clearly there was something in his face that caused Loki to take several precautionary steps back. It wasn’t far or quick enough as in a single stride, Thor had Loki’s arm clenched in one hand. The Jotun Prince’s face was drawn tight, his expression pinched. 

“Aye, dear wife, whoever would be so mischievous to open a portal for such fell creatures upon Midgard?” 

Face blank, still there was a hint of resignation on Loki’s face as if this was something familiar between him and Thor. 

Perhaps it was that that caused Tony to step forward, his mouth running a mile a minute, as he neatly separated Thor and a bemused Loki. 

“So any ideas?” Steve asked Loki, returning to his original question. Bright blue eyes, steady and calm, gazed without condemnation at the Jotun Prince.

Silky black brows snapped together in puzzlement at the number of people between him and Thor. They are…protecting me, he thought in confusion. 

“While there are several that come to mind,” he replied absently, mulling over the oddness of the mortals’ behavior, “there is only one whose arrogance outmatches her skill.”

Thor immediately stiffened, his eyes flaming in outrage. “You would dare impugn the Lady Lorelei?” he exploded. And despite the restraining hands, took a step forward, dragging his fellow Avengers forward as well. “Have you no shame?! Nay, twas you that caused these benighted beasts to come to this place! You are the only one wicked enough to enjoy such mischief!”

Loki’s face instantly shut down and he vanished noiselessly. 

Looking self-righteous, Thor glanced around at his friends, belatedly aware of their hands on him. 

Tony sighed and shook his head, raising and lowering his arms helplessly. “I…I just can’t,” he said and turned away from their Asgardian ally. 

Steve glared at Thor who looked surprised to be on the recipient of such look. “You can’t or won’t give him a break? Which is it?” he gritted out in a rare show of displeasure.

“Break?” Thor laughed darkly, his hand tightening around his hammer. “Aye, I shall break him of this cowardly fleeing and lying!”

“I mean,” Steve said with visible strained patience, “why are you so determined to assume the worst of him? I know we haven’t known him as long as you, but, for crying out loud, he was trying to help!”

“Help…?” Again Thor laughed darkly, his expression unamused. “My wife helps no one…”

“Yeah, then whaddaya call that?” Clint pointed to the shimmering portal through which the cat-like creatures were leaping back through. 

Thor gaped at the portal. 

Steve sighed and shook his head. “If all you have is a hammer, every problem is going to look like a nail,” he paraphrased. 

The Asgardian looked uncomprehendingly at Steve then his hammer before gazing at the portal where the last of the creatures, the queen, was disappearing. “I…I do not understand,” he said haltingly.

“It means, not everything is Loki’s fault,” Natasha replied, her voice clipped. She turned and walked away, every inch of her back a silent line of angry frustration. Gazing at the woman’s back, Thor knew he had somehow he had offended her. Gazing about at his allies, he understood he had disappointed them all. 

But how, he did not know. 

Not knowing how to handle the condemning look in their eyes, he began swinging his hammer and launched himself skyward. 

 

“Shall you be needing anything else, Prince Loki?” JARVIS inquired politely. He had already introduced the prince to the wonders of ice cream, mint chocolate chip—a particular favorite of Ms. Potts—which Loki was curled up eating slowly while staring at nothing. 

“No…”

“Would you like to continue our chess game?” JARVIS queried calmly, but before Loki could answer, the computer stated calmly, “Warning…Prince Thor will arrive back at the tower in ten seconds.” While it was true that the AI program did not express emotion like human, it would be untrue to say it could not observe and take action. And it drew upon well over a thousand hours of video feed to unlock the series of doors to its creator’s secret panic room made specifically for Ms. Potts. “Master Stark has a collection of first edition books housed in a library room below. Shall I show you the way?”

Loki froze then sprang with alacrity at the mention of a library. A library had always been a place of comfort and safety, the perfect place for him to avoid his husband’s famously short temper.

Just as the last door sealed shut behind Loki, Thor landed with a faint thud. Brows drawn, his face held a dark expression. “Loki! I would have speech with you,” he fairly shouted as he stomped into the common area where his wife could usually be found. But to his surprise, Loki was not there. “JARVIS, where is my wife?”

“I do not see him, Prince Thor,” JARVIS answered truthfully after cutting feed to the room then re-established connection after answering the question.

Thor growled, his eyes flaming with temper at how once again his wife had made him look the fool. He stormed through the Tower shouting for Loki—who was curled up blissfully below reading a fascinating Midgardian history book.

By the time Thor returned to the common area, the rest of the Avengers were back.

Having received a report from JARVIS, Tony lost no time going on the attack once the Asgardian prince stepped into the room. “Seriously Point Break, do you hate the dude so much that you think everything is his fault?” the bearded inventor charged seriously. Tony took a generous swig of his scotch as he waited for Thor’s reply. “He was telling us that one of your people was the originator of the spell and you jump down his throat!”

Thor frowned mightily. “He dared to accuse the Lady Lorelei…” he began with some heat but was interrupted by Tony.

“He’s your fuckin’ wife, dude!” Tony said harshly, a rare show of anger on his face. “Your. Wife.” 

Face darkening with anger at the unjustified rebuke, Thor mouth opened to loudly decry his ally’s remarks. 

“Thor, listen…” Steve began quietly, though anger simmer just under the surface. “Someone is creating portals, linking our world to another world. Dangerous portals that are allowing creatures from those worlds into ours. Now, thanks to your wife, we have one crucial piece of information…that someone on our world is working with someone of your world to open these portals. Would you agree with this?” 

Grudgingly Thor nodded.

“Then why would you immediately try to shift the blame to Loki?” Ever patient, Steve waited for Thor’s reply.

“Because he lies…!” Thor burst out passionately. “He has ever been jealous…” His mouth snapped closed but it was too late.

Tony sighed wearily and rubbed at his forehead. “Let me guess, the Lady Lorelei was one of your bitches?”

Blonde brows drew sharply inward at the derogatory term, but Thor had compiled a mental linguistic device that allowed him to converse with the mortals. “Yes,” he admitted with a sigh of his own. “And he has ever been jealous and envious of my former bitch’s skill and position in court.” 

Tony and Clint goggled before doing an about face. Thor frowned confusedly at their shaking shoulders. 

“And you have ever been the fool,” Loki remarked cordially, appearing soundlessly in the room. “Think you that I would be jealous of another some hag-ridden quim’s place in your bed? That I would bestir myself to make up lies? For what reason?” JARVIS had provided a feed from the common area to the panic room below where Loki had been listening to the discussion. “Are you such an arrogant fool to believe yourself some great prize to be fought over like dogs to a bone? King Odin bargained with my sire for one hundred and fifty years to be yoked to your side, you dim-witted, addled fool, and not one minute more shall I remain!”

Pointing his hammer authoritatively at Loki, Thor commanded sternly, “Hold your tongue!”

Oh, yeah…that’s not gonna go over well, Tony’s thoughts were bleakly cynical. He lived in awe at Thor’s rampant stupidity. It almost made him feel ashamed of being a member of the same gender. He would feel almost sad for Point Break’s except for the fact that the guy was so fucking clueless. 

He was proven correct several seconds later as Loki unleashed a cauldron of bubbling venom upon Thor, who fell back at the level of venom that spewed from Loki’s mouth. 

Though he didn’t know Loki that well, Tony’s money was on Loki being right on all points. He took a look at the Thunderer’s face and would have bet that this was the first time Loki ever went off on Thor like this. It’s too bad shit for brains can’t shut the fuck up long enough to learn something, Tony thought to himself. 

Loki whirled to look at the discomforted Avengers watching the screaming vitriol being hurled back and forth between the royal couple. Abruptly he turned blue, retreating to his natal form. The windows began to frost over. His eyes were wild with rage, and curiously enough, disappointed. “He has ever allowed his precious friends to abuse me, call me names. Naturally the court followed suit!”

Now it was Thor’s turn to look discomforted. “They but merely jested,” he said unconvincingly. “You proved as much when you cowardly attacked Lady Sif and cut off her hair.” He looked accusingly at Loki, definite ire in his eyes.

Tony and Clint coughed loudly at that. If one listened closely, the coughing almost sounded like ‘goodjob’. Both Steve and Natasha hid their smiles behind professionally neutral expressions. 

Neither prince took notice.

“Your good friend, Lord Fandral, called me a nithing,” Loki replied flatly. He looked tired all of a sudden, as if arguing with Thor wore him out. “Initially I did not know what it meant, but judging by your people’s reactions, I knew it an insult of most dire nature.”

“What’s a nithing?” Clint asked curiously. Though Thor looked simultaneously ashamed and horrified, his mouth was mulishly sealed. “JARVIS…?” The archer prompted, a slight hardness entering his voice. 

Loki crossed his arms and looked defiantly at Thor. 

The AI was prompt in responding. 

“While not in use today, in European Viking’s warrior-culture, nithing was the height of insult to another to which only violence and/or death could wipe away the stain of such a word being applied to another. It was a term used for a specific type of social stigma that implied the loss of a warrior’s manhood and honor, stealing away from battle by donning a woman’s dress. Vile coward, a villain or waste of space and was often a title given to certain types of criminals such as murderers, oath-breakers, etc. These people were considered without honor and were the dregs of society. Also, in Germanic mythology, a nithing was a demon, a mythological creature. It was supposedly a fiend that caused harm and undoing to other people, often through the use of magic,” JARVIS reported calmly.

Thor flushed at the flat, level look Steve turned on him. Even Natasha lost her famously impassive expression. 

“Tell me, if I called you a nithing, what would you do?” Tony quipped interestedly. He was taken aback by the look of feral rage Thor turned on him but didn’t back down. Instead he turn a look of bright mockery on the Asgardian. “Oh, I see…it’s off with their heads when someone calls you that but it’s ROTLMFAO when your friends call him that?” 

Everyone kept a close eye on the big beefy hands that clenched and unclenched restlessly. Tony wasn’t deterred. Coming face to face with death, not once but twice—it gave a person a sense of perspective and one’s place in life. Nodding thoughtfully, Tony strolled back to the bar for a drink. “Yeah, that’s kinda what I thought, too.”

“It’s not like that…!” Thor protested angrily, gesturing emphatically at Tony. “My friends…” he began.

“No, Thor,” Tony’s voice was crushing. Yet there was some sympathy in his eyes when he looked at the Asgardian. Likewise, he had trusted Obadiah Stone. “Don’t you get it yet? If you’re looking for ride or die bitches, that they ain’t.”

Both Thor and Loki frowned, thrown out of their ire at each other. “What are ‘ride or die bitches’?” Thor asked suspiciously. 

Always dramatic, Tony threw up his hands in exasperation, turning to the others with an incredulous face. “Jesus take the wheel…!”

Natasha let out a huff of amusement at the inventor’s dramatics. “It’s an Earth phrase that means someone that would fight at your side even if they die themselves.”

Thor visibly brightened, his chest puffing out proudly. “Then yes, they are bitches that would gladly ride forth at my side even unto death,” he stated unequivocally. 

Loki sneered, his eyes bright with contempt. He pushed away from the wall. “Truly? Truly? The mighty Warriors Three and the Lady Sif were at you side as you stormed onto Jotunheim and did battle with my people. Yet, why did they not share in your banishment?” He glided forward with predatory grace. Affixing a thoughtful expression, he pretended to think. “Where were they, my dear lord husband? Perhaps they were conveniently on another realm, hiding from the All-Father’s wrath?”

Dark, ominous clouds gather outside. Thor stared at his wife with heated eyes, yet his face worked with angry bafflement. “Had you not stole into Asgard…” he began hotly.

“….to take back what had been stolen from my world.” Loki was ice to Thor’s searing rage. His lines pulsed with seidr, silver against the blue of his skin. A mute warning to his husband.

Thor, however, was too enraged to take heed. “You interrupted my coronation,” he bellowed furiously. 

Electricity danced on Mjolnir, his eyes silver blue as his power rose at his bidding. He appeared larger, dangerous…primal.

Loki, quixotically, seemed to shrink yet grow taller…blade-like. Set in his blue face, his glittering, crimson eyes were utterly focused on Thor. A slim, icy blade grew from his hand. 

A sight Thor did not fail to miss.

The others in the room slowly began backing away, almost regretting getting involved in what was clearly a domestic dispute.

Loki’s eyes glinted cruelly. He whirled around to the retreating humans, inviting them to witness his great lummox of a husband’s sweeping hubris. 

“Ah…and there you have it, mortals! Bear witness to the grand, illustrious heir to Asgard—the great defender of the nine realms—who, because his precious coronation was interrupted, he and his equally idiot friends stormed onto my world, where they slaughtered over three dozen of my people without warning!” 

The Jotun Prince’s shout echoed in the room. His ragged breath was loud in the sudden stillness. Loki exhaled shakily, averting his face momentarily. When he looked back, his face was eerily composed, none of his emotions leaking out. “Where they killed Prince Byleistr…” Despite his efforts, his voice cracked, he swallowed hard before forcing out his next words, “my…my younger brother.” 

Thor’s mouth open and closed several times, a stunned look on his face. 

“Ah, shit…” Clint whispered to Steve who nodded soberly, eyes reflecting his sympathy. 

“He was kind to me…in his own way,” Loki said simply. Both he and his younger brother were similar in that they were of little use to Laufrey: he because of his abnormality and Byleistr because he was the youngest of Laufrey’s children. Their brother, Helbindi, was cut from the same ice as Laufrey.

A silent witness to this—clearly a long-standing argument—Bruce sighed. Taking off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose with mingled anger and sadness. So many things were at last making sense. Though he tried to stay mute, to stay out of Thor and Loki’s problems, one couldn’t help but feel the roiling tension that existed between the two. 

Replacing his glasses, he looked at the two again before shaking his head and slipping silently from the room. There were too many parallels between his parents’ marriage and theirs. 

And he knew how his parent’s marriage ended.

“What I did, when I stole into Asgard to retrieve the Casket of Ancient Winters, I ensured no one was injured or harmed for I knew Asgard’s would send their might against us. My people—we are dying, my world is dying. Children are no longer being born. I wanted us to take our place once again amongst the Nine before you became King.” 

Nat’s eyes were slightly narrowed, listening to the Jotun prince, parsing what was said and unsaid. She had heard enough to come to the realization that Loki’s small stature was an abnormality. He had all the markers of systemic abuse. And as such, she strongly suspected it wasn’t from some altruistic reasons that he tried to steal the Casket—he stole it in a desperate attempt to win his father’s favor. She noted how Loki said his brother was kind and inferred that it simply meant Byleistr was less of a threat than their father and brother.

Eyes narrowed in an expression of frozen rage, Loki’s lip curled in a sneer of epic proportions. “All know of Prince Thor, Asgard’s most celebrated warrior—brash and impulsive—Asgard’s finest Warrior-born. Did you know, did you even note how the other realms began taking precautions when King Odin announced your coronation as his heir?” Coming to an abrupt stop, his breath ragged and uneven, Loki met Thor’s blank stare with eyes of uncompromising, brutal honesty. 

His eyes closed, the Jotun prince inhaled slowly then let the breath escape his lungs in a long sigh. He looked immeasurably weary of a sudden. “No, of course you did not think anything wrong, that all the realms would rejoice in your ascension to Crown Heir. But I listened from the shadows, listened to visitors at my father’s table careful talk. And knew it would not be long before you inveigled one or more realms in a fruitless war over some imagined slight to your precious ‘honor’. All knew that Jotunheim shall be your first act of genocide, as you have stated many times to ‘slay the monstrous Jotnar’.”

“And they forced you two…to marry each other?” Clint yelped, his voice rising with his incredulousness. He looked between the two princes. “And expected you to be happy about it?”

Though Thor looked shaken by Loki’s revelations, he responded to the human’s question with an absent-minded shrug, looking vaguely amused. “We are royals, while happiness would be nice, it is not a guarantee. A royal marriage is to settle peace treaties or bind warring parties.” 

Loki nodded in agreement. “I expected my marriage—in some way—would benefit Jotunheim. I did not expect to be happy.” He searched visibly for the correct word. “Happiness would have been…a bonus.”

“Wait, when were you banished? And where?” Tony asked, suddenly remembering what Loki had said. 

Thor shrugged again, his eyes looking far away. “In the time of your people, my banishment occurred many of your centuries ago when this country was young. You were fighting against your English ruler over tea?” He looked briefly disapproving. “Son of Franklin tried to explain to me the wrongs done by your English king…but I did not understand his vehemence.” 

“Of course, you didn’t,” Loki muttered sotto voice, though without heat, just weariness.

“But he was my friend, so I trusted that, perhaps he knew that of which he spoke,” Thor finished, manfully ignoring his wife.

Steve gaped at Thor, his mind reeling. Finally gaining a little understanding how others felt when they realized just how old he was. “You were here during the American Revolution?”

Thor looked intrigued and shook his head ruefully. “Humans and your love for naming. You have so many wars that you must name them all? What was the one called involving your dark-skinned brethren…the ones that were enslaved?” 

“Civil War?” Steve said numbly, his eyes wide as just how old Thor was. 

Thor smiled was tight. Though his eyes darkened, he had resumed control over his volatile emotions. 

“I began finally to understand what my father and mother had been trying to teach me. Different does not mean lessor. Different just means…different.” He sighed, fretfully rubbing at his chest. “I protected a family of dark-skinned people, helped them escape. When the Slave Hunters came to my farm seeking them, I denied them and was beaten then shot for harboring them.” 

“How did you escape?” Tony asked in the hushed atmosphere. This was a man that had been through several of America’s wars.

Thor shrugged carelessly, though his eyes were stark. “I did not…I died. However, because I saw the meaning and value of helping another, of proving my ‘worth’ I was given my life back and regained Mjolnir.” He cast an affectionate glance towards his weapon.

“And clearly you forgot what you had learned,” Loki spat furiously, his eyes gleaming frustrated rage. 

“I…I…” Beefy hands clenched and unclenched. Thor’s face was a wrecked with some unnamable emotion. “I…need…” Breaking off, he stormed to the balcony and began whirling his hammer before flinging himself aloft, rapidly receding into the distance.

Loki laughed harshly, his mouth fixed in a sneer of contempt. His eyes were wild with rage and like Thor, some other emotion the humans couldn’t place. “Yes, run away while I clean up your messes!” he shouted to the fading figure of his husband. “Pathetic…” he muttered before striding away. 

The Avengers looked at each other. It was clear no further histrionics would be coming from either of their alien guests. 

 

And far away, Sif smiled at the sight of Thor’s angry, frustrated face. 

“Thank you, brother,” she said, wiping the smile from her face and affecting a sad, weary expression as she turned to Heimdall. She sighed, looking regretful. “I…worry so about him. He tries, but Prince Loki refuses to compromise.” Her breath caught artfully. “I fear someday…” 

Heimdall nodded gravely, golden eyes somber with equal concern. He glanced over his sister’s head to the Warriors Three playing dice before he returned his gaze back to the cosmos. “There is much bitterness betwixt Prince Thor and Prince Loki.” It was his turn to sigh. “I had thought…but perhaps there is yet too much animosity between the people of Asgard and Jotunheim for them to escape its effect.”

Unnoticed by her brother, Sif smiled slowly. 

 

On Earth, delicate fingers lingered caressingly on the eldritch sigils of a large silver bowl filled with the crystal blue water, drawn from the Spring of Eskavaras. The seidr infused waters from this pool was used by many seidr-masters for Far-Seeing. 

From the tumbling waterfall, shimmering strips of pure seidr flowed before dissipating. It took careful talent and extreme caution to harvest the seidr-infused waters. There were many families who lived richly, plying the waters for profit and jealously guarded their various secrets for successful harvest.

There were endless tales of seidr-users who became lost in the images and drowned. 

With a ripple, the images of the warring princes of Asgard and Jotunheim wavered then faded from the waters. 

Of the three occupants of the room, only two smiled, though one of the smiles was forever hidden. 

“You are certain this will work?” Sitting back in his chair, arrogance radiating from the man. He made even the most banal question or sentence sound like declaration of war. 

Opposite him, the woman ignored him, her eyes fixed with singular intensity on the fading image of Thor. For all the attention she paid her companion, it was as if he wasn’t in the room. 

Though his eyes narrowed slowly and he bridled silently at the woman’s impudence, he refused to lower himself to repeat himself. 

With consummate ease, both ignored the third party in the room that stood as a massive, silent sentinel.

Finally the woman deigned to favor him with her attention. The tiny smirk that played on her full, red lips told him the slight was intentional. 

There was an unsettling flicker in his icy, slate blue-gray eyes that gave her momentary pause. 

“Of course,” she replied with a careless shrug, her arrogance more than a match for his own. Her green eyes glittered with such cool superiority that he was hard pressed not to teach her proper respect for him. Her up-tilted, feline-like eyes gave no hint that she knew of his true thoughts. He was no different than many other men she dealt with, she thought amusedly to herself. And I still stand while those around me fall. 

Getting to her feet, she sauntered towards where the man sat. It cost her little to give way to him, to be the one going to him. Besides, she still needed him…for now. Later, once her objective had been achieved, he would be discard like all the others.

Hips swaying evocatively, she prowled seductively towards him. 

Clinically he regarded her. Intellectually, he conceded that she was beautiful, and had he perhaps been interested in woman or sex in general, he may have fallen for her obvious lures. As it was, it was easy for him to ignore the poisonous bait she exuded.

“Thor is a typical Asgard warrior, witness his reaction to his consort,” her mouth twisted sourly at the word ‘consort’, making her feelings plain. “An Asgard warrior feels magic is a ‘woman’s’ domain and a ‘true’,” now her voice turned savagely mocking, “man would ever shun magic.” 

A flash of rage came and went on her beautiful face. “They think mage-craft is easy.” She and the man looked at one another before simultaneously snorting in rich disgust and rolling their eyes in perfect agreement.

“If it was easy, every idiot with a hint of power would be slinging spells,” he replied dryly, heavy contempt evident in his voice.

Her tinkling laugh was very much amused. “You see the problem, no?” Though she looked amused, her eyes were hard. “Because they cannot see the physical skill—our discipline and strength—they cannot conceived the effort involved.” She shrugged almost carelessly.

The man’s eyes were shrewd. “You still have not explained fully to your interest in Thor’s marriage.”

She lowered her eyes almost modestly. “According to the marriage treaty, their marriage shall only last one hundred and fifty years. And I plan to be the next Queen of Asgard,” she stated calmly as if there was no doubt.

“Ah…but the Lady Sif seems most interested in Thor. She is one of his companions and she also has a child by him.”

She smirked, eyes widening with faux innocence. “She does?”

His eyes narrowed before a startled laugh erupted from him. He had not felt this amused in years. These Asgardians were amusing with their machinations. “You are most clever.”

Throwing back her blond head, she laughed as well at the joke played on both Thor and Sif. “Oh, no…’twas not I.” 

He began laughing again. If the legends were true, Loki would make a worthy mate for him. Together they would rule this world.

He thought of the beautifully wrought necklace he had designed with the Jotun in mind. Yes, once he brought Loki fully to heel, they would create a dynasty to rule Earth…and perhaps beyond.

Thousands of miles away, across the oceans Loki’s head jerked up. Crimson eyes narrowed to thin slits as his head turned, sensing a danger to himself. 

 

Long through the night, a storm raged high above the New York City skyline. Thunder boomed, making buildings quake and car alarms blare. Lightening lit up the darkness, making night appear day for brief seconds before darkness once again smothered the light. 

It was a wild, fierce tempus that even the most intrepid city dweller wisely sought shelter from the tumultuous night.

And in a darkened bedroom, a tall figure stood, as lightening rent the darkened skies. A silent sentinel throughout the night, his eyes glittered in the darkness, like the rarest of jewel.

Slowly the storm gentled. 

As if in apology for frightening the people, a warm, gentle rain began to fall. Though lightening still flared and thunder rumbled overhead, both the sound and lightshows were softer, muted in the aftermath of Thor’s display of rage.

Lightening flared, outlining the hulking, armored figure on Loki’s balcony. Expressionless eyes regarded the wet figure of his husband before Loki approached Thor with a towel in-hand and opened the doors. Ignoring the proffered cloth held out to him at arms’ length, Thor looked searchingly at his wife. He swallowed hard before reaching out, only for Loki to jerk away. 

There was remembered fear in the gem-bright eyes. 

“I would not…” Thor whispered hoarsely, his face wracked with anguished pain. “I would NOT!”

Loki jumped at that impassioned shout. He inhaled shakily and looked away. “I…” he swallowed hard, struggling to master his fear, of brutal lessons learned in childhood. “I know.” 

This time, when Thor reached for him, Loki steeled himself to allow the touch. His breath catching in a hushed sigh. If they could just be like this, if Thor could just…Loki hardened his heart against the undeniable passion that existed between them. But lust was not enough to make him forget all the rest. 

Reliving that moment, he did not move when Thor cupped his cheek gently, turning him back around. A callus finger glided gently over the whorls and lines of his marks, instantly shocking him back to the present. Breathe catching, Loki shifted minutely, his eyes widening at Thor’s unexpected move. He swallowed, eyes half-mast, caught between cool logic and his innate biological response. 

Only a lover knew how to softly caress the hereditary lines and marks of another Jotun. 

There was a time before, when things had been…good between them. When they first married, when Thor had made an effort to court him. A time when he was, if not happy, but willing to give his pale-skinned husband a chance. A time before the Atrocious Four, grown jealous and spiteful, began whispering in both Thor’s ears and the ears of the court. Calling him unnatural, foul and akin to dark things.

And they listened, turning hard, suspicious eyes on him though he had done nothing to warrant any such distrust and disdain.

Breathe escaping him in a soft sigh of regret, Loki reached up and clasped Thor’s hand, stopping the soft, evocative touches.

Thor took no notice of the restraining hand. Electric blue eyes strangely intent, he closed the distance between them. Loki shivered as cold, wet armor and cloth pressed against him. It was strangely erotic. He shivered again as the cold gave way to warmth when Thor leaned in and nuzzled against his ear. 

Slowly he drew back, his eyes wide as he looked at his husband. “Husband…?” he whispered, his eyes uncertain of this new person.

Thor stood back, putting distance between them and hardening his face against the question in Loki’s eyes. But his eyes flickered upwards then back down. 

Loki’s breath hitched in sudden understanding, his eyes widening in astonishment before he smiled twistedly. Thor echoed his smile albeit a touch grimmer. 

This time when Thor reached for him, Loki braced himself. A warrior every bit as Thor, he knew how to take a blow and a fall. Both of which Thor dealt him.

By the time the Avengers interceded, both bore numerous cuts and bruises. Most of the furniture was broken or smashed.

Even as they were pulled apart and away from each other, their eyes clung. Hiding behind the bruises and blood they inflicted on each other, a strange satisfaction sang in Loki’s blood. 

Perhaps Thor was beginning to see.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was beta'd by the wonderful Hrmpf!

The Avenges and Loki met with Fury on SHIELD’s floating helicarrier. 

As it was Fury’s first meeting with Prince Loki of Jotunheim…naturally it did not go very well.

Not well at all.

The meeting went downhill the moment Fury started telling Loki what the Jotun Prince was going to do. 

Had anyone bothered to ask Thor, he would have advised caution in dealing with his contrary consort. But unfortunately, no one thought to ask. On the positive side, the meeting went a long way towards providing a relief valve to the Avengers. Even Natasha lost her famed inscrutable expression.

And it started with a question, ‘Are we boring you, Prince Loki?’… 

 

Fury folded his hands and stared imposingly around the room at the group of tired, demoralized people. His single eye glinted with a frozen, rigidly held temper. He wasn’t angry at them, rather, he was angry at the nearly untenable situation they were all in. Some goddamn, limp-dick bastard was shitting on his goddamn, mothafuckin’ planet. When he caught him—and he would catch that bitch—he was gonna shove his size twelve shoe so far up that fucker’s ass, mothafucker would be coughing up black leather for years.

The reason for his temper lay in the report in front of him of the latest portal opening. A portal that had opened while the Avengers were busy dealing with the Wrecking Crew. A criminal group who seem to have a hardon for causing massive city damage– because they could. There was no aim, no end goal. Somehow, they had escaped their lasts holding cells. 

The portal site was left defenseless.

And people died. 

Agents and civilians alike.

Children.

Although the Avengers were heroes, none of them had the ability to be in two places at once. 

The worm-like creatures that spilled from the portal killed nine civilians before the Avengers were finally able to get there just in time to stop an attack on an elementary school. 

The report blandly read that ‘only three minor civilians died’ but by his book, that was three too many. 

Though the creatures looked like segmented worms—they were fast, long and with lots of teeth. SHIELD had lost over thirty people trying to hold the creatures back. Fifteen more were still in the hospital fighting for their lives.

Fury had been on the phone almost all morning, dealing with calls regarding the portals. He had also just left a meeting with the World Council where he had had his crusty black ass chewed up and spat in his face from a bunch of fuckin’ asswipes that sat up in their fuckin’ towers and pretended like they knew shit about what went on in the real fuckin’ world. So he could, perhaps, be forgiven his short temper.

It was rather, unfortunate that Loki was not generally known for his readiness to forgive. 

Had anyone thought to, maybe, ask Thor, they would know this as well.

Right now, Loki sat almost sullenly, a look of utter boredom on his face. 

He felt he was close to finding the person opening portals and yet at the same time, further away. For Thor was, unfortunately, correct…it could not possibly be Lady Lorelei, for the enchantress was currently languishing in prison, as verified by Heimdall himself. 

Yet all his instincts screamed that it was definitely a female Asgardian of some power. But if the Lady Lorelei was in a Vanir prison—from which very few had ever escaped—the question became if not her then who? And why? What was the motive, and who was the Midgardian fool providing assistance? 

He had the disturbing sensation that the portal openings were little more than a stalking goat. 

His mind turned to the mortal helping the Asgardian. In truth, he felt almost sorry for whoever was providing aid. Asgardian seidr users were most jealous of their power. And should the Asgardian seidr master’s plan go awry, undoubtedly the mortal would be tossed into the path of a sword. 

“Are we boring you, Prince Loki?” Fury bit out. His single eye glinted. Clint and Natasha both winced. Hawkeye tried to scrunch down, keeping out of the line of fire. 

Slowly Loki brought his attention back to the room. He stared incuriously at the fuming man. Fury reminded him of that other wretched one-eyed fool that thought himself in control and all-wise. 

“Of course you are,” he snapped, his brows abruptly contracting into a frown. Loki dismissed the mortal by turning to his discomforted husband and demanding to return to the Tower to continue his work. 

“The fuck you’re going anywhere!” Fury growled intimidatingly, his voice deepening with his rage. Standing, he loomed over the table, drawing every wary eye. “First, you’re going to tell us about every fuckin’ world these goddamn portals have opened, every world that a portal can possibly open and what their fuckin’ destructive capabilities are!” 

Loki stared at Fury, his eyes slowly narrowing. Thor eyed his consort worriedly, his body tense. Loki had killed people for less. “Have care for your tone, mortal,” the Jotun prince said softly, dangerously.  
Thor exhaled carefully.

Fury leaned forward and smiled nastily. “Really? How about this, you blue mothafuckin’….” A green flash erupted from where he was standing. The Avengers scrambled from their seats with cries of alarms. Fury was gone. But from where he had stood came a muffled quack of alarm. It was followed by a series of increasing louder and somehow, angrier quacks.

Dropping his face in his hands, Thor groaned. “Loki…”

His consort looked unrepentant. Then Loki yelped and scrambled from his chair onto the table then smirked at the floor. From the floor came the angry sounds of a duck. Which didn’t make sense since how the hell could a duck get into the room?

Hesitantly the Avengers rounded the table to see a large black mallard angrily jumping, trying to peck Loki’s feet.

It took Tony and Natasha an instant to figure out what happened. To the Widow’s credit, she didn’t laugh...much. That, however, certainly was not the case with Tony. He took one look, figured out what happened and burst out laughing. He was tired, hurt and feeling wretched at how many people had died because of how slowly they had been in getting to the portal. 

It was a defense mechanism, Rhodey had once explained to Pepper after she took high exception to Tony’s inappropriate laughter. Tony used humor as a deflection to protect himself. The deeper his feelings ran, the more uncomfortable he was, the more things Tony found to laugh and joke about.

JARVIS had already started creating full bios on the civilian victims. Pepper was already preparing the paperwork, ready to provide full medical coverage and fifty thousand dollars to provide for the victim’s family while their loved ones recovered. 

Naturally, it was all done discretely…Tony felt guilty, but he wasn’t crazy.

Tony clutched his already aching ribs, the pain from his previous injury doing little to curtail his helpless laughter. Even when duck!Fury waddled under the table and began furiously pecking at his legs, it only made the genius inventor laugh all the harder amidst pained cries. 

“Loki, please…” Steve sighed, his impulse to laugh disappearing as he thought on how many had died in this latest sortie. “The Director didn’t mean it…he’s under a lot of pressure to curtail this situation.” He looked gravely at the blue alien in their midst. Tony was wheezing in the background. “He’s lost over thirty of his people because we couldn’t get there fast enough and then we didn’t know how to stop the creatures. They stood between the civilians and the worms…and they died.”

Steve’s mouth was set in a grim line. There was a dull look in his usually blazing, blue eyes. “It’s always hard as a commander to knowingly order your people into the line of fire.” He sighed before his shoulders squared. “Please turn him back,” he said calmly. Despite the display of manners his mother drilled into him, there was no mistake that his words were anything but an order.

Cold crimson eyes regarded the resolute soldier of America. Blue Jotun skin faded to pale ivory skin as Loki resumed his Aesir skin. He slid a glance at the others who also watched him with carefully, blank expressions. 

Thor sighed, knowing how well his wife reacted to being ordered to do anything. Loki was simply contrary like that. He opened his mouth…

“Very well, as you have ask so nicely.”

Thor’s mouth closed with an abrupt snap.

Loki’s smile was unexpectedly mischievous and charming when a very incensed…and very naked Fury stood up. Steve whirled around, wincing at the sight. Behind his back, he hastily made a gesture at Loki, which the Jotun understood…promptly vanishing.

“LOKI…!” The room sound-proofing was no match for the director’s enraged bellow. 

Tony took one look and was on the floor again, finding it again difficult to laugh and breathe at the same time.

Thor’s eyes rested thoughtfully on the good Captain.

 

Several days later found Loki once more in the lab. It was night and he was frustrated. 

He sighed and rubbed weary, aching eyes. Sitting back, he stared unseeingly at the far wall that was full of his scrawling notes, notes that carefully notated each portal and its place. He had to start tracking the portals openings, recording their locations on the wall as tracking the signature of the portal on his own was no longer permitted. 

Apparently, suddenly appearing in mortal cities seemed to cause much consternation. With the advent of dangerous creatures unexpectedly appearing in their midst, humans had started running and screaming at any unexpected thing that suddenly appeared. 

The sudden appearance of a blue, horned alien in their midst was a definite cause for alarm. Some even flung objects at his head in an effort to stop his advance. There was even a visual of one such event that brought much laughter to the Avengers that showed Loki with a roll of white tissue adorning one horn. It had been unraveling behind him.

Reluctantly, he concluded that he didn’t know how the seidr user was creating the portals. Even if he were at full power—he cast a disgusted look at the rune-etched bracelets that adorned his wrists—he would not be able to…his eyes narrowed slowly, a sudden thought coming to him. 

Then he looked regretful, shaking his head. No, the portals had only been opening for the past month. The only other person he knew that could power a portal of such complexity and precision was the Lady Amora, and much like her sister, she was currently languishing in a Dwarven prison and had been for the better part of six months. 

Though in truth, he simply could not see the Lady Amora consorting with a mortal or even instructing a mortal in the creation of one portal, much less several. Her utter disdain for mortal-kind was akin to Asgard’s disdain for his people.

He sighed again before getting up and leaving the room. 

As he wandered the halls to the common area, the Tower was near silent around him. Not unexpected as he usually found the humans typically abed at this time of early morn. 

Crossing the open area of the living room, in an unconscious behavior from childhood, Loki made his way silently through the room keeping to the shadows, his skin and attire easily blending in the shadowy darkness. A fleeting impression of movement sensed in the soft eddies of air that hinted at his passing. 

Loki casually glanced at the midnight skies beyond the glass doors. He paused at the sight of a familiar blonde head on the balcony. Crimson eyes glowed with indecision before Loki wandered in that direction. 

He found himself intrigued by the quiet-spoken mortal. Rogerson reminded him oddly enough, of Thor. 

They were the complete opposite. And in the weeks since he had arrived, he found himself wondering, more than once, would he be so determined to leave were Thor more like the good Captain?

The balcony door opening alerted Steve to approaching company. The startling red eyes floating in the darkness made him jump visibly and yelp. The rich, baritone laughter that preceded Loki’s appearance made him smile sheepishly. “Oh, sorry ‘bout that,” he muttered, resuming his seat and hoped his heart would stop racing. “Kinda didn’t expect anybody to be up at this time.”

“Mmmm,” Loki hummed noncommittally as he took a seat. He glanced at the night sky, his eyes narrowing as the city lights produced the luminous glow that slightly impaired his vision. “I thought all good humans were supposed to be in their beds.”

Steve glanced over at the Jotun briefly before looking away and leaning back in his chair. “No…” he replied shortly. Silence fell between the two before Steve reluctantly broke it. “Ever since the serum, I found I…don’t need that much sleep.” Dark and troubled, he stared out into the night.

Loki frowned at that, his eyes curious. “Do you not suffer ill-effects? I thought humans required more sleep to function.”

“Yeah, well I don’t.” While Steve managed not to snap, his voice was undoubtedly terse. Coming to a sudden decision, he made as to get up. A blue hand laid on his arm halted his move.

“Peace…” Loki grimaced, the night fortunately hiding his expression. “I did not intend to upset you.” He took a deep breath before letting it out slowly to calm his temper. “My father says I have a singular talent for irritating others. If I have offended you, you have my apologies.” Stiffly he inclined his head.

Steve made a face as well before saying reluctantly, “No, it’s my fault for being too short-tempered.” He grinned suddenly. “My mother used to get on me about flying off the handle, said I better get used to eating crow ‘cuz I would be eating it a lot if I keep acting like a hot-head.”

Loki’s lips moved silently, struggling to understand the mortal’s mode of speech before giving up. “I do not understand what flying and a handle have to do with you,” he said stiffly, “and I have seen images of your avian creatures, they are said to be quite palatable.”

Throwing back his blonde head, Steve laughed heartily. Loki surged from his chair, stiff with offended dignity. “Wait, wait,” Steve chortled, scrambling from his own chair to stop the Jotun. “I wasn’t laughing at you…yeah, I was, but not the way you think,” he added hastily as the very red eyes narrowed ominously. “Let me explain…please,” he entreated with wide, pleading eyes.

Grudgingly the Jotun prince sat. Steve snickered softly as he dropped in his chair as well. “Sorry, but it was kinda funny…” Seeing the wrathful expression in Loki’s eyes, he hastened to explain. “First, ‘flying off the handle’ is a phrase we humans used to describe someone easily angered,” he said, pointing to himself. 

“Why?” 

Steve paused to think then nodded to himself. “It’s kinda like what would happen if Thor’s hammer wasn’t firmly attached to the handle, now imagine it flying off without his intent.”

“Oh…” Loki’s eyes widened, imagining the damage the uncontrolled war hammer could do. He winced. 

“And about the crow,” Steve scratched his head, blue eyes narrowed in thought, “from what I understand, the meat of a crow is really kinda nasty. For that matter, not all birds taste the same or even good.” He leaned forward eagerly, his eyes alight with sudden enthusiasm. “I saw this program the other week about birds. There’s this bird called the turkey vulture that eats carrion meat, maggots and all!” 

And that’s how the others found them when they stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast, Loki and Steve talking and laughing like old friends. Talking about anything and everything. Naturally, neither spoke of secrets pertaining to their respective races, instead they talked about general things they had seen and witnessed. There was a rare smile on the Jotun prince’s face, gone was the haughty, icy demeanor that the Avengers were used to seeing.

Tony smirked at Steve, causing the soldier to falter and stop in confusion. “Hate to interrupt your little tete-a-tete, but would you two like some breakfast? Or would you like some privacy?” The wiggle of his brows gave his words an uncommon lewdness.

Belatedly catching on, Steve’s face erupted in a tide of color and he started stammering. Loki, however, was made of much sterner stuff. He stared at the genius inventor for a long, disturbing moment before he silently rose from his chair and began to walk, no, stalk towards Tony.

Tony’s smarmy look began to fade, his own face becoming still, a shadow of his core-self rising to the surface at the threat implicit in the Jotun’s look. 

The room abruptly fell silent at the dangerous rising tension. A slim knife dropped silently into Natasha’s palm as she was never one to remain unarmed even in the Tower.

A freezing ice began spiraling before the Jotun.

“JARVIS, increase the temperature to eighty degrees,” Tony stated calmly, folding his arms as he waited.

“Very good, sir.”

Loki grinned savagely at the heat that blasted him. He stood still, an eerie grin on his face. And while he might not show it, that look thoroughly unnerved Tony.

The heat abruptly dissipated, plunging the room back into icy temperature. “A hundred, no one hundred and twenty, JARVIS.”

The room began feeling warmer before once again the temperature dropped. Now the windows began icing up as frost began slowly creeping up the walls.

“Loki…!” A sudden voice broke the tension. Thor stood in the doorway, an angry look on his face. He then shouted something in a language unknown to the humans. After one fierce look at Tony, Loki began shouting back, again in the same language. Whatever he said caused Thor to rock back on his heels and look at Tony in horrified dismay. Thor focused back on Loki, his voice suddenly conciliatory. 

With a last burning glare at Tony, Loki gave a short nod before turning and leaving.

“What the fuck?!” Tony burst out, releasing the tension in his wiry frame. He paced, a seriously pissed off expression on his face before turning and pointing a finger at Thor. “NOBODY threatens me in my own fucking home!”

Thor swept a tired hand over his face. “Friend Tony,” he began carefully, clearly struggling with his words, “Loki and I, we understand none know of our realms, so we make an effort to be more accepting of the insults you unknowingly give to us.”

“I did not insult him!” Tony shouted, brown eyes narrowing with offended dignity. He raised his arms and spread them as if to display his openness and friendliness. “I have been more than accepting of his funky ways!”

“Yet, you did, in fact, give a killing insult for which he would be well within his rights to slay you.” Thor sighed before fixing the humans with a steady stare. “You implied, before witnesses, that he accepted another into his bed.”

Tony gaped at the Asgardian. “What? I was only joking, hahahaha,” he replied, still visibly upset. “Besides, you knocked up that Sif chick which means you had someone in your bed!” Tony looked triumphant at bringing out that little nugget of info.

Deep in Thor’s eyes, something ugly stirred, his head cocked to the side as he studied the bearded mortal. Subtly his hand flexed then relaxed. When he spoke, his words were careful and precise. “The Jotun race are meticulous in regard to what genetic traits are allowed into their Family Lines. When a Jotun takes a mate, they cleave to one another solely until one passes from this world. Jotnar take great pride in their Family Lines, which detail every Jotnar that had a hand in bringing forth the latest child. Were you to understand the tongue of Jotunheim, you would be able to read the names of all of Loki’s forbearers. Loki can trace his antecedents as far back as the first Jotnar that walked their planet. This is how they establish kinship, rights of inheritance and purity. “

Thor spoke very carefully now. “To imply Loki was or is unfaithful to me, taking another into his bed…it is a killing insult for which his only recourse would be to slay you, to wipe the stain on his honor. Do not be fooled by his mildness. The last time someone implied he had shared Loki’s bed in full court, it took several days to clean the room as Loki had simply froze the fool then made him to explode.”

Tony went white at the graphic image Thor painted. “I…I didn’t mean to insult him,” he grumbled. He shrugged, though there was clear discomfort in the set of his shoulders. “You know how I am…”

“I know this,” Thor replied heavily, his blue eyes visibly distressed. “But please have care with your words, for next time, Loki may not be so inclined to heed my words. And he would be well within his rights to defend his honor.”

“For a couple of insults?” Steve asked incredulously, his face still a bit flushed by the ensuing drama. While clearly uncomfortable at Tony’s jest, he didn’t think killing a guy was worth it.

Thor scrubbed wearily at his face. “Should our contract end without a child, Loki shall remain childless for several more years as he shall be barred from a mating with any high-ranking noble. Should one accept him, it will be with the condition that he shall not bear a child. None shall willingly accept him for fear a half-Asgardian child shall be foist upon them. Jotnar have the ability to halt or suspend the final conception of a child to a more optimal time; it is common practice, as I understand, during Jotunheim’s summer season, when the climate is too warm for effective birthing. A king, such as King Laufrey, may give a less favorite child to an upcoming soldier, noble or a victorious general to secure loyalty for a specific period of time.” He hesitated before finishing in a careful voice. “And it would be a rare exception for such a Jotun to allow a child not of its genetic line to taint the Family pool.”

Carefully, Tony put down the glass of scotch. It made a sharp sound as it touched the marble counter-top, but no one noticed as all were caught in the grip of Thor’s words. 

“You mean they would kill the baby,” Tony stated flatly, a numbness creeping over him. Every time he thought Thor and Loki couldn’t get any more fucked up, Thor had to disprove him. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he muttered savagely.

The Asgardian looked sharply at the human, at all the humans, meeting their eyes with an uncompromising stare. “The people of Jotunheim are scrupulously careful of their bloodlines in ways your human minds cannot fathom….As are most of the Nine.” His sky-blue eyes darkened slightly at the appalled look on their faces. 

His mouth curved in an unamused way. “You look at us and think us so barbaric,” he said quietly, a faint challenge in his eyes. “But are you so much better? I have listened and watched your news. You celebrate and glorify women who chose to give birth alone with no right or acknowledgment of the father; your women and some men, allow their unborn to be scraped out and thrown away. Women are raped, on a nearly hourly basis as are some of your men. You wage a war of words and slander and do violence against two men or women loving one another.”

He stood, as always, careful of his strength among such fragile creatures. “And yet you think we are the barbaric ones?”

Thor stormed away.

Cloaked in shadows in the hallway, Loki had a thoughtful look on his face as he stole away.

 

Later that day, in a typical Tony Stark grand non-apology that was his way of saying ‘Sorry, I fucked up’ he rented out Madison Square Garden and for one day, it became a world of ice and Loki’s private playground. 

And for the first time, the Avengers heard Loki laugh.

That it was at Thor’s expense was unavoidable, but by then, everyone was laughing at one another as Loki glided effortlessly over the ice while the humans flailed, wobbled alarmingly before falling on their asses. 

The only one that came close to matching Loki’s grace was Natasha. And even she was smiling, a soft look in her eyes.

For one whole day, Loki felt free.

Steve watched from the sidelines, a cup of hot chocolate in his hands. Laughing, he had refused to venture out on the ice, asserting he knew his limits. “You did good, Tony,” he murmured softly to himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of reveals...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any mistakes in this chapter are mine, my wonderful beta did an awesome job (as usual). Unfortunately, I like tweaking things a little too much.

Part IV

There came another incursion, one far deadlier than the previous incursions. One that paired the Avengers against a nearly implacable opponent.

The fighting was fast and furious as Thor found out first-hand just how truly dangerous magic—used as a weapon—could be. 

As they all found out.

Even the near indestructible Hulk was left raging fruitlessly, suspended high in the air by some unseen force; useless with no surface tension to use his greatest weapon…himself. 

And far below the raging behemoth, the Avengers were left battling a horde of horse-sized spider-like creatures that stepped, almost, daintily from the glowing portal from who knows where. Creatures with mandibles that dripped some kind of thick, viscous substance that Tony scientifically concluded, was ‘ewww’. 

Down one of their heavy hitters, Thor found himself hard-pressed to fight and defend his allies as he became the target of some kind of invisible energy beam that forced him to constantly defend himself. Several times the energy managed to sneak past his defenses to strike him, and every time, it was as if liquid fire got inside him and seared his veins with agony. His armor was smoking in the several places the energy source had penetrated.

All would have been lost had Loki not appeared with a crackling sound as well as a blistering cold that coated the nearby buildings and raging spider-like creatures in a clear casing of ice. With one penetrating glance around, Loki sealed the portal from which the creatures entered the mortal realm. The now blue Jotun prince ducked under one of the hissing creatures and with one sharp moved, neatly bisected it with his bare hands. 

“Awesome,” Tony rasped out, his eyes flickering over his sensory readings. Before Loki arrival, his suit had been spitting out sparks—now he was simply frozen in his suit. Thankfully, he had the forethought to equip his suit for icy extremes, but still, he didn’t like it. 

He frowned after waiting several seconds. “JARVIS,” he sighed theatrically, “maybe you could activate the heaters? Like, sometime today?”

“I could, Sir,” JARVIS responded promptly, “but I rather imagine you would like to continue living? If not, I will activate the external heat vents. With the coating of ice on them, the heat would simply cook you instead. Would you like to be baked done or well-done?”

“JARVIS,” Tony replied in a reproachful voice, giving the onboard camera a disappointed look, “I have no idea where this sarcastic attitude is coming from, but gotta tell ya, it’s not a good look on you.” 

“I learned from the best,” JARVIS replied serenely. “Ms. Potts is a most capable teacher.”

Mind focused on his seeking spell, Loki turned in a slow circle, trying to pinpoint the source. He had been waiting impatiently, for the latest incursion, having deduced that all this was simply a distraction from something else. As with the other incursions, he felt a growing certainty that it was the Lady Amora that was ultimately behind these fluxes. No matter that Thor denied it, Loki had the  
‘scent’; he recognized the signature now, faint though it was. 

Though how she had solved the dimensional destabilization and gravitational flux, he had no idea, but he was most eager to know. 

His eyes flared a brilliant red before narrowing. “I have you now,” he purred and gave a sharp yanking motion with his hands.

From the portal that just formed…a large metal creature landed in front of the Jotun seidrmaster.

Loki frowned, highly displeased at the upset to his plans. “You are not Lady Amora,” he stated sharply, looking disapprovingly as Doom slowly clambered to his feet.

“No,” Doom intoned with august majesty, “I’m not.” With barely a pause, he fired a bolt of mage fire at the alien prince. 

Almost negligently Loki blocked the shot, as well as the succeeding shots at his person. He frowned darker at the metal encased human, idly wondering about mortal-kind obsession with encasing their bodies in such garish fashion. “You and she are joined in some endeavor,” he said slowly, his mind neatly dissecting this new information. “Foolish on your part as the Lady Amora is a most duplicitous creature, holding little loyalty for any save her own interest.” 

He studied the metal encased mortal thoughtfully. “Your magic overshadows her, but I can still sense her beneath.” Loki directed an imperial glare at the mortal. “You shall tell me why immediately.” Implied was a strong sense of smiting if Doom was not forthcoming with information.

With another wave of a slender blue hand, the Avengers were released from their icy prisons. Thor landed with a muffled whomp even as he frowned disapprovingly at Loki, having overheard a good portion of his consort’s conversation. “I say again, the Lady Lorelei would not be so crass as to involve herself with some mortal spell slinger.” With consummate ease, he ignored the black look from Loki at the pejorative remark warriors coined about magic users.

“Of course she would…if it furthered her interest and powers,” Loki replied flatly, half-turning to sneer at his foolish lout of a husband. He created a bubble that quickly enclosed Doom. “But you are correct that it is not Lady Lorelei…it is that of her sister who’s magic lays just under this pathetic creature. He positively reeks of her scent.” His eyes narrowed wrathfully. “I simply have not yet discovered why. It is clear she is looking for something, but what that is, I do not know. This is far beyond simple mischief, Thor!” He bent upon his husband a withering stare. 

“What do you mean, she’s looking for something?” Tasha asked calmly, smoothly sliding between the two warring princes before Loki threw something at Thor’s head…like a car.

Loki’s face smoothed out, eerily back in control of himself. He waved idly at the still frozen spiders. “Tis obvious these incursions are meant to hide the patterns of her searching. It must be an object of great power, for the Lady Amora ever seeks power to advance her cause and bend others to her will.” 

Tony nodded, his eyes thoughtful. “So the payout gotta be large for her to get outta bed?”

Silky black brows drew together as Tony became the focus of Loki’s claret gaze. He shivered, glad he had the armor encasing him as Loki suddenly scared the crap out of him. 

“Yes,” Loki replied shortly.

Doom banged vigorously on the curving walls of his prison (he already learned the hard way NOT to haphazardly throw mage bolts at the walls; his armor was still smoking in places). He was casually ignored by the others.

Gesturing at the air between them, a scaled model of the Nine Realms hovered silently. “Observe,” Loki ordered shortly. “I have accounted for the dimensional shifts and pulls, gravitational flux along with aelyluo and lysteria winds. By calculating the gravitational points of reference for each realm, comparing it with the corresponding value of this realm, naturally subtracting the values from which each incursions originated, you find there is a distinct pattern.” On each of the nine planets, a red dot blinked, then each of the planets overlaid Earth and as Loki said, each of the dots corresponded to a specific location on Earth.

However, what the humans found shocking was that Thor nodded thoughtfully, though his face still held some doubt. His face suddenly brightened. “Ha! You forgot to factor the gravitational pull of Midgard’s sun and moon!”

Loki eyed Thor with extreme disfavor. “Clearly, you did not excel in galactic spatial math,” he replied caustically. He rolled his eyes for good measure, giving the humans a rueful smirk. “My lord husband has forgotten what every schoolchild knows! Joraman the Wise clearly provided a theorem upon which you can add the two finite numbers of both the realm and one of its suns to achieve a fixed number which can then be substituted for the orunma number in lieu of the galactic number,” ‘you idiot’ was unsaid but very much heard as Loki fixed his husband with a withering stare. “Which I have done,” he added coldly.

Bruce and Tony’s mouths were open in silent awe. This…this was math beyond math. “Earth…earth has a galactic number?” Tony rasped, the first to recover from his shock. “I mean, of course we do,” he answered himself in a confident, self-assured tone. He looked meaningfully at Bruce. “Bet we’re number one,” he said confidingly.

Jotun, like their Asgardian brethren, had excellent hearing. “Hardly,” Loki responded crushingly. He bent an imperial gaze on the futurist. “There is no such galactic number.”

“Ha ha,” Clint jeered softly, in the manner of the cartoon character on The Simpson’s. It earned him an ugly look from both scientists but he didn’t care. He had been longing for someone to bitch-slap both scientists with even bigger science that they couldn’t understand. He was tired of their annoying, silent superiority and dismissive attitude that he was just a guy that shot arrows. 

Like it was so fucking easy to hit a target with only a half-second to calculate distance and factor in all potential environmental hazards. 

He would like to see them do his job on the fly.

Loki ignored the mortals’ byplay in favor of studying his map. He felt the female join him in studying the spinning planet. 

“You’re right,” Natasha admitted softly, her analytical mind seeing the pattern unfold in the seemingly random dots on the global map. “It is a search pattern….But what’s on our planet that’s so important that she would risk your people’s wrath?” 

“Not my people…” Loki replied absently, his eyes beginning to glitter with the excitement of discovery. “Frigga has always claimed there is a reason for all that Odin does. If an object is here, then it is here because he placed it here.”

Natasha’s face was cool and still, not by a minute twitch did she give anything away. “And just how pissed do you think he would be if somebody dug up what he hid and decided to keep it?” 

Loki looked down at the woman, his eyes sharp and penetrating. An almost cruel smile curved his lips. “As you mortals would say, it would very much suck to be that person.”

She nodded absently, her eyes focused on the spatial map floating silently before her. “Yeah, I kinda figured that would be the case.”

SHIELD arrived eventually to pick up Dr. Doom. The agent in charge, quite rudely, insisted Loki remove the shielding around Doom so that they could transport him. It was a pity, because once they arrived and were placing him in his cell, he blew up.

Staring down at the mess of bleeding, groaning agents, metal, exposed wires and circuitry, Coulson sighed and rose from his crouched position. Turning, he looked at the grouping of agents. “Tell me again, why did you have Prince Loki—who happens to be a magic user—remove the shielding around Doom?” If the agent could, he would have paled even further at that blandly-voiced inquiry that accompanied Coulson’s placid smile. 

 

Four days later, and several thousand miles away, several black-clad people were deep beneath the earth in a recently excavated cave while another dozen busily secured the perimeter. They had received notification only two hours ago of the find. 

The group underground followed the babbling, excited white-haired archeologist as he led them through various tunnels to where his team had found the softly glowing object. 

“Isn’t it simply marvelous?” he enthused happily as they exited the last tunnel to a vast cavern. The African workers took one look at the newcomers and carefully eased away. They weren’t stupid, unlike the American man-child, as they had taken to calling Professor Actin. 

Coulson smiled calmly at the professor as he carefully eased the man to the side so his people could work. “Yes, it is,” he replied with an unflappable countenance. “Unfortunately, preliminary scans indicate that this stone is not of Earth origin and for security reasons, we have orders to secure it.”

Tall and thin, with a shock of white hair always in disarray, Professor Actin radiated an infectious enthusiasm that typically endeared him to his students. His face was made for smiling which made the uncertain frown he was displaying all the more off-putting. 

This was not to say, the professor was unaware of the more disagreeable elements of the world. He just rather preferred not to deal with it…if he could help it. 

Excitement fading, replaced by a look of trepidation and caution, Professor Actin’s eyes narrowed. Even his hair seemed to bristle. The look in his faded gray eyes sharpened. “Take? You wish to abscond with my find,” he proclaimed in a loud voice, his voice rising indignantly. Drawing himself up to his full height, he glared around. “Over my very dead body you will!”

The African workers and his archeology students glanced at each other, shrugged and with shovels, brooms and boards attacked the SHIELD agents. 

It was almost comical easy how quickly SHIELD disarmed the workers and the students. But the outraged professor was a different matter altogether. For over fifty years, Professor Actin had been a devout practitioner of tàijíquán and had long since received his mastery. His movements smooth and flowing, the professor was gracefully felling any agent that came within reach. But even he could not be in two places at once, and so while others dealt with the unexpectedly dangerous old man, the luminous yellow gem was carefully placed in a well-padded case. 

Two of the agents returned back the way they came with all-due haste.

Coulson went head-to-head with the old man and within several quick, successive move, took Professor Actin down and carefully secured the feisty man. He took the time to crouch in front of the angry professor and gave him a calm professional smile. “Sir, please understand that SHIELD regrets this action but for your own safety, this item is best left in the hands of …” His head turned sharply, the faint staccato of gunfire funneling down the tunnels. 

Professor Actin’s pissed off expression shifted to one of spiteful pleasure. “Good job of protecting it,” he remarked with a definite smirk at the sudden tension that sprang into the other man’s wiry frame. He instinctively drew back at the look of anger in Coulson’s eyes when the man’s attention swung back his way. 

“Wait here…” Dismissing the professor, Coulson sprang to his feet and raced through the tunnels, barely hesitating at each junction, his memory of the path nearly flawless. Scrambling up the ladder, to where daylight shimmered, he exited the underground excavation site into what was clearly a pitched battle.

And SHIELD was losing. 

 

“Sir,” JARVIS crisp voice broke the easy silence in the Common Room, where, wonders of wonder, Tony had successfully managed to taunt Loki into playing a video game. “I’ve been monitoring SHIELD communications. There appears to be a battle in South Africa between SHIELD and several unknown sources.” There was a pause. “The enemy combatants are Chitauri.”

“Suit up…” Steve said with forced calm, moving at a half-jog towards the elevators. “JARVIS, get the jet ready…” 

“Ah, man…and we just finished fumigating the planet!” Tony’s gripe was light-hearted as he hurriedly slipped his wrist-cuffs on and was joining the others heading to the hanger. 

Loki stood uncertainly in the middle of the room, looking forlorn. An expression that was instantly wiped away when a tousled tawny head poked back into the room. Clint had an aggravated look about his eyes, his brows pulled in an irritated frown. 

“You waiting for an engraved invitation?” he said half-impatiently. “Cap says suit up…that means you suit up!”

He was taken aback by the unexpected smile that Loki gave him.

 

They arrived in ample time to provide backup for Coulson’s beleaguered team. 

Loki couldn’t resist throwing a superior ‘I told you so’ look at Thor at the sight of a blond Asgardian woman hurtling seidr bolts at SHIELD agents. 

However, Thor had other matters that lay claim to his attention. 

Specifically, a large raven that winged its way amongst the fighting to land on…Loki’s shoulder. Whatever it croaked in the Jotun’s ear made the sorcerer’s eyes widened to their fullest extent. 

Then Loki vanished.

“Keep them distracted,” a voice whispered in Steve’s ear, a voice that sounded like Loki, but when he looked around, there was no sight of the Jotun prince. Absently he ducked, instinctively holding his shield before him, angling it slightly so the bolt of energy ricocheted off it and slammed into another Doombot.

Gritting his teeth, the effort of holding the shield in place telling by the minute trembling of his hands, Dr. Doom glared over his shoulder at the slim, golden-haired figure decked in her trademark black and gold leggings and green skirt. “Will you hurry?!” he snapped harshly, “I can’t maintain this shield for much longer.”

“Patience, darling,” Amora purred, her fingers dancing in the air, weaving the spell that would open multiple portals, from which she could escape with the gem. Not by a flicker of her eyes did she let on that the gem Doom had tucked into his armor for ‘safe-keeping’ was a fake. 

Such a silly mortal, she thought with amused fondness, to think I would allow an Infinity Stone to be held in any hand but mine. And once I have located the rest, Asgard and all the Nine Realms shall bow to the Enchantress.

Queen Amora has a nice ring to it, she thought giddily, opening another portal to a vista that looked similar to an African plain…except the creatures that looked at the portal with interest bore only the vaguest resemblance to any Earthly animals. For one, they had six legs, but what really gave it away that the portal led to someplace not on earth was the three heads on each of the creatures. 

“Whoopies…!” Tony exclaimed, dodging swiftly to the left as a Chitauri flyer fell from the sky. It was quickly followed by a succession of others. But more suddenly began pouring from the portal.

The tables turned once again, putting the humans once again on the defensive. 

Amora darted towards a lush, green portal, easily recognizing the Vanaheim realm. She pulled up short as a tall, blue horned creature materialized in front of it. “Going somewhere…darling?” Loki purred in a low, mocking tone. His red eyes gleamed nastily as his smile widened. His head tilted slightly, displaying the points of his horns. 

She backed hastily away, her eyes narrowed in sudden thought. She knew, for a Jotun, their horns were not merely decorative…they were weapons.

“Loki, darling, whatever are you doing here?” Amora paused, her hip cocked just so as she looked at him with hooded eyes, making the most of her lush curves and giving him a magnificence pout. “I thought us friends.”

Loki allowed his eyes to sweep slowly over the Aesir’s sorceress slim, yet shapely figure. He had made her acquaintance soon after he had married Thor. She had been the only court lady to befriend him…or so he had thought. Used to the fidelity of his people, it took time for him to understand that among the Aesir, fidelity was just a word for ‘I didn’t get caught’. No self-respecting Jotun would ever make a play for the mate of another.

Still, she had taught him a valuable lesson.

He smiled pleasantly at her, his smile every bit as rapacious as hers. “My dear, I wouldn’t touch you with a beggar’s cock.”

Amora gaped at him for a second before her face shut down, turning merciless with cold fury. Especially at the loud guffaw from the flying man that hovered overhead. “Ooooh, burn Lokes!” Tony called down cheerfully. 

A casual wave of her hand sent Tony tumbling through the air, yelling about the unfairness of magic. 

Another wave sent a bolt of mage-fire at Loki, who grimly stood at the ready. For he knew, beyond her pretty, golden radiance lurked a sorceress of nearly unparalleled combat seidr. 

While he may not quite be the equal of a combat seidr-master; his edge, according to Frigga, was the vastness of his imagination. And the other secret that he and Frigga shared.

Fast and furious, did the two battle. Both grimly determined to best the other and so intent were they that neither noticed an odd darkness to one of the portals Amora had ripped open. Nor did they notice it was slowly growing larger and an odd chittering was coming from the space beyond.

“Heads up…!” Clint called over the comms, his voice calm and even. He paused, switching targets instantly and firing as several dozen Chitauri flew from the portal. 

Amora and Loki’s eyes met before they turned, as one, and began firing at the figures exiting the portal. 

“Close it, you dizzy-eyed harpy,” Loki growled, throwing himself in a duck and rolling away from the flare of the energy discharge one of the things turned on him. He called in his staff which he began using with extraordinary effectiveness.

“Such delightful words…” Amora panted, dodging a Chitauri drone before drawing her long-knife and using it as it was intended, “one would almost think you cared. And I am trying…something is holding it open on the other side,” she reported grimly. Jumping, she anchored herself onto the drone’s shoulder and repeatedly stabbed it about the head until it fell down. “I don’t even know what these creatures are!”

Then they both paused, seeing a huge figure sitting on an equally large golden floating throne. All sound receded from the battle for them both, their breaths escaped them in fitful pants. Amora was unconscious of the tiny squeak that escaped her.

Dread was in their minds and froze their limbs as both recognized the figure. 

For on almost every realm, nearly verbatim, the story of how the Buri, along with an army of several billion finally defeated the Mad Titan and ousted him from Yggdrasil. 

The cost in lives and seidr was grimly recounted every year—‘lest we forget’—on every realm that had a part in casting out the Mad Titan. 

Loki and Amora shuddered, feeling the same atavistic terror at the sight of the slow smile that curved the instantly recognizable, dreaded face.

As students of seidr, there was one particular subject that was mandatory once a student achieved a certain status in their studies. Many called it a myth, sniffing huffily that the subject was little more than the product of a nervous, overwrought mind. 

But it was curious that such a ‘myth’ had never been outright excised. It was the one subject taught to all the learned seidr-masters on every realm, for it was silently understood that they would be on the front lines should such a being managed a return to Yggdrasil. 

Loki made a tiny noise and sidled away as the creature drifted closer to the portal. He felt an overwhelming relief when a great light flared, knocking the Mad Titan back. 

“What did you do…?” he rasped out to a trembling Amora. 

Her eyes were large in her milk-white face as she looked in disbelief at her hands that were still smoking from the seidr bolt she had flung. “I…I…don’t know.” She whimpered pathetically when pitiless, black eyes fixed on her. 

She frantically began shaking her head ‘No’.

“Come to me, little one,” came a sonorous whisper from the portal. 

Mind gibbering in panic, Loki still had the forethought to take the stone from Amora, who was near mindless by terror. 

Greatly daring, he began pouring his considerable strength into closing the portal. Emboldened by this, and despite her great terror, a quaking Amora managed to focus her energies likewise into closing the portal. 

They were enemies united in a singular goal—preventing the Mad Titan from crossing over. There was very good reason why he had not only been exiled, but literally banished from the World Tree.

“What are you doing?!” Doom growled, his eyes flaming behind his mask. He gestured and several of the Chitauri slammed into each other.

“Saving our lives, you fool!” Amora snapped harshly, her focus still on the portal. “Keep those creatures off of us and mayhap we shall yet live. Should he comes through, we shall most surely die.”

Doom frowned behind his mask. “Doom is the greatest Techno-Sorcerer,” he said simply, without conceit. “Why should Doom be afraid of a large purple ape?”

Loki growled, his face taut with strain. “He courts Death by killing entire planets and sending her the gifts of the inhabitants. He destroyed his own world as a gift to Death. Think you he shall spare this world his touch?”

Doom was silent but poured more power into his shielding. Behind the mask, his face was grim. The glimpse he caught of that huge imposing figure felt like icy claws were slowly trailing down his back. An atavistic terror recognized by his hindbrain.

Tony paused when the two Doombots fighting him turned and suddenly engaged the Chitauri on the air-scooters. “Seriously, who are we supposed to be fighting again? We’re tag-teaming the fuck-ugly dudes on the flying scooters?” he muttered dubiously before shrugging and joining the Doombots in kicking ass.

 

The helicarrier had made good time getting to Africa to provide backup. However, as soon as they were in range, the Chitauri began attacking them as well. 

As Amora and Loki poured their strength into closing the portal, a vast hand shot from the other side and grabbed the Enchantress. 

“Give me the Stone…” growled a heavy voice.

Asgard was truly a warrior culture. The thirst for battle was inbred in their bones. Even the so-called intellectuals, urbane individuals had the same thirst for battle of their visibly war-like brethren (though they strenuously denied it). Every Aesir child, from the time he or she was able to stand on their own, began training in the use of armaments. 

Amora called in her long-knives and began stabbing, all the while continuing to try to close the portal. 

Loki ran full tilt at the hand that was pulling Amora inexorably towards the portal. Once he got close enough, he jumped on the hand, stopping the words spilling from his mouth long enough to calmly tell the woman, “Run.”

Under the noon-day sun, the air seemed to visibly shiver. Under the hot sun, it began to turn cold. Which should have been impossible, especially in the summer months in Africa. 

Diverting enough magic to teleport herself out of the purple hand, Amora vanished and reappeared several feet away. She judged it safe enough distance to see what Loki was doing.

She was wrong.

For once Amora was out of harm’s way, Loki revealed a secret he had been keeping for the past several years…that the All-Father’s magic no longer contained him. He broke the cuffs on each wrists. 

 

Under normal circumstances, Jotnar were dangerous. While all had the ability to control their icy touch to avoid burning other beings, most never bothered. 

Born Mages were exceedingly rare—not just on Jotunheim but on every realm.

In fact, the odds of birthing a Jotun mage versus a regular Jotnar was something along the lines of five thousand to one. Most of the outside world didn’t understand the difference between a mage and a Born mage. For that matter, not many knew there were another type of mage for it was a secret every Jotun King had zealously guarded for several millennia…that it was from the line of Jotun kings came the rarest of all mages. 

And any being, outside the royal house, that learned the truth was quietly killed to protect this secret. 

All seidr users could sense, to varying extent, the continuous flow of seidr that flowed around them. Once taught, a mage could actively ‘see’ the varying streams of seidr that eddied around them. The deeper the color, the more power one could pull from such streams. A seidr user was more powerful on their realm of origin, naturally attuned to that brand of seidr. And, with great effort, some seidr masters eventually learned to channel seidr of other realms. 

But it was at a price.

However, a Born mage’s body housed devastating secret—not only could they harness the seidr of every realm, they could also pull to them the very seidr that flowed throughout Yggdrasil itself. 

And Loki was one of the greatest and last Born mage of Jotunheim. For over a hundred years, he had been trained by Frigga of Vanaheim, the Premier Sorceress of Asgard. 

Herself a Born mage.

Frost began covering the ground slowly. Scraggly scrub bushes iced over, becoming intricate crystalline sculptures. Amora backed rapidly away, staying several feet ahead of the creeping frost, as did Doom, who had been alerted to the danger by the Asgardian sorceress. 

Just before the frost bloomed outward, Amora turned and began sprinting for safety. No fool, Doom turned and pelted after her. And the frost rapidly spread, covering everything in its icy grasp. It movement as if sentient.

The deep blue coloration of Loki’s body began fading. Frost covered the giant hand he was pressed full length against. 

He paled further. 

The temperature was dropping rapidly, the air surrounded the area becoming increasingly colder. 

Loki’s body turning a blinding blue-white.

It began to snow.

And the hand of the Mad Titan began darkening, fingers of shadowy darkness were creeping outward from the flesh the Jotun laid upon. Necrosis was visibly beginning to settle into the flesh of the ancient being. 

Finally, from the other side of the portal, a bellow of pain was heard. 

Loki was shaken, flung high into the air.

Tony dove to catch him.

“NO!” Thor threw his hammer, catching the inventor in the solar plexus and forcing him away from Loki. 

Loki landed brutally hard, drawing a shrill, helpless cry from his lips. Yet he managed to summon enough energy to raise his hand and gave the last of his energy to the portal to close it. Although the Mad Titan was no longer holding the portal open from the other side, it still drained Loki to close the portal.

The view to another universe abruptly closed.

The Jotun prince sighed, his body going limp.

It was over.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was successfully beta'd by an incredibly awesome individual Hrmpf1. Thank you for all your suggestions, corrections (I freely admit I won't win a Spelling Bee) and tweakage!
> 
> One more chapter after this then the epilogue. Hope to get both up before end of the week!

It was pretty anticlimactic after that. 

With the combined effort of Doom, SHIELD and the Avengers, the Chitauri and other creatures were soon dealt with. They turned their attention to Thor, who upon seeing Loki passed out on the ground, shouted and rushed to his fallen wife. His hands fluttered above Loki, speaking of his uncertainty. It was only when Loki became blue once again did Thor clutch his wife to his breast.

Fury gave Natasha and Coulson a look. The Widow merely stared at him then through him, but didn’t move. She was only subtle when she wanted to be. Coulson sighed before making his way to where Thor was trying to rouse a now, safe to the touch Loki. “Let’s make him a little more comfortable,” he said evenly. Under the guise of helping make Loki more comfortable, he was able to pocket the Stone. 

Rising, he made his way back to Fury’s side where he smoothly flashed the gem at Fury before leaving to place it in its carrying case. 

“You would do well to return the Stone, Friend Fury,” Thor said quietly without looking away from Loki’s soft blue face. “It was placed upon Midgard by King Odin, the All-Father, for safekeeping.” Thor looked up, meeting that dark yet familiar stare. To his credit, no sound of thunder rumbled in the distance.

Fury crossed his arms, looking distinctly unimpressed. “I have orders from the World Council to secure the Stone,” he stated quietly, no hint of backing down in his voice. “The Stone belongs to Earth and its inhabitants. I think we’ve proved we can handle ourselves,” he added dryly.

Thor laughed softly, although his eyes were devoid of any humor. “Then you are a fool, playing at being canny.” He shook his head, still watching Fury. “You have proved only that you have the heart and will to fight. That means little to beings that do not even need to descend to your world to destroy it. The Stone would be kept safe in Asgard’s vault.” His stare was uncompromisingly blunt.

“No…it belongs on Earth and in OUR hands,” Fury snapped harshly. His sole eye drilled into Thor’s, who smiled calmly but nodded curtly.

“Then upon your head comes your fate.”

“Wait! Was that like, a threat? Should I be scared and shaking? Cause it sure sounded kinda ominous,” Tony quipped, landing neatly beside the group. His facemask slid up, revealing a sweaty bearded face. He peered curiously at Loki in Thor’s arms. “How’s our boy doing?” His eyes suddenly grew wide. “He’s not dead, is he?!” There was genuine alarm in his voice.

“Nay, friend Stark, my consort yet lives,” Thor smiled at his friend and the relief the mortal tried to hide. It was good that Loki had made, if not friends, but someone who did care about him. 

Thor turned his attention back to Fury, his eyes suddenly holding an ageless wisdom. “But Fury has an item worlds over would kill to possess. It shall bring death and destruction upon your fair world. I do not say may, for that implies a possibility— _will_ implies a certainty that others will come to take what you try to hold and defend. They will leave your worlds in ruins.”

Tony looked curiously at Fury who glared impotently at Thor for revealing that he had the Stone. “What? SHIELD is stealing from babies now?”

“Four of the Stones were given into the care of my grandfather. Stories have it that the Stones resided in Asgard’s Vault until my father became king. Upon my father’s ascension to the throne of Asgard, his first order of business was to have each Stone placed in separate locations upon the branches of Yggdrasil. He is the only one that knows where each of the four Stones are.” Thor nodded at Fury. “Yon Fury has decided this Stone is best left in your world’s keeping despite the dangers I know will come to your realm. He believes your people can fight off any marauders.” 

Thor’s eyes held pity. Fury’s uncertainty was expressed in the minute furrow of his brow. 

The sky began to boil. 

Recovering himself, Fury’s lip curled in a faint sneer. “Oh, I suppose you think a little thunder and lightning ‘s gonna scare me?”

Thor’s lips curled in a half-smile. “My father comes…” he replied simply. 

Loki stirred, disturbed by the harmonics beginning to build in the ether. His eyes fluttered before opening slightly. He blinked lazily at Thor. “Release me…” he rasped, visibly struggling to resume his air of cold indifference.

The ground shook as the Bifrost slammed into the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

When it slowly cleared, a tall, white-bearded man stood in the center, and surrounding him was a garrison of Asgard’s finest. And standing just behind the king, stood Sif and the Warriors Three, glaring around suspiciously. Their hands were on their weapons, showing their battle readiness.

Two massive wolves stood on either side on the grizzled, one-eyed man. Clad in silver-gold armor, he looked huge…like fucking immense, Clint thought with dismay. Fuck, he was bigger than Thor. It was clear that age had little effect on the man.

It was also clear, to Tony’s disgust, that they grew them fuckin’ extra-large on Asgard.

Thor bowed his head but didn’t rise from where he cradled Loki. “Forgive me for not rising, my king,” he said quietly. He didn’t know whether the All-Father came as Father or King, but felt it safer to stick to protocols.

Expression fierce, Odin strode towards the royal pair, coming to a stop once he reached them. 

Staring down at the Jotun’s cloudy, wary eyes he waved off his son’s apologies. “No…do not stir yourself child.” Then to the two princes’ gaping astonishment, Odin went down on one knee. “You are well, son?” he said awkwardly, gently smoothing a wayward strand of hair behind Loki’s ear.

Alarmed, but trying not to show it, Loki struggled to sit up. “Yes, All-Father,” he said respectfully, bowing his head and ignoring the savage pounding that instantly began in his head at the simple action. He gritted his teeth against the pain, fighting not to allow the Asgardians to see any sign of weakness in Laufrey’s Curse.

His stomach churned. His eyes grew wide with horror as lunch threatened to make an appearance all over the All-Father.

A large, heavy hand settled carefully on his stomach. A wave of refreshing coldness swept over him, radiating from the hand the All-Father settled on his abdomen. The pounding in his head receded as did the insistent nausea. 

Odin’s smile was miniscule, both Loki and Thor felt a refreshing vigor infuse their limbs. 

His father had come to see Thor. 

Then Odin stood, seamlessly shifting into King-mode. He stared expressionlessly at Fury, taking in the Midgardian’s measure and accurately knowing what angle to take. 

“I believe you have my property,” he said softly, dangerously.

Thor and Loki exchanged a look then scrambled hastily out of the way. Even Amora, though she had little love for her mortal ally, grabbed Doom’s arm and pulled him—protesting indignantly—with her. She already knew her fate, but she was reasonably certain she would be able to escape.

Fury crossed his arms, a bland look on his face. He felt he was on familiar territory, dealing with puffed-up men with delusions that they’re all powerful. All hail the Great and Powerful Oz, he thought sardonically. 

“Are you sure?” he asked instead, his voice calm. “Because around here, on these parts, we like to make sure our possessions are securely within our reach.” He leaned closer, saying as if offering a great secret, “it prevents a bunch of sticky fingers from picking it up and keeping it….Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

Odin looked coldly amused. “I must confess, the thought of any creature on this world being intelligent enough to find it never crossed my mind…seeing as how this world’s creatures were mostly concerned with eating and hunting each other.”

Tony sucked in a breath, his eyes wide. “Dude…! He came from China with that blow,” he whispered in awe to Bruce, who strongly hushed him but didn’t disagree.

The Director’s lips thinned to a flat line. “Well, you’re not dealing with our ancestors,” he snapped, just barely remembering to modify his tone. This fucking asshole was really starting to fucking piss him off.

“True,” Odin nodded soberly, there was a glint in his eye that had Fury bracing himself. “They were quite simple animals, with simple lives and thoughts. Our Chief Healer took a liking to them, and decided to see what would happen were she to…tweak them a little. She was quite pleased when she reported her findings, that the ‘animals’ she had tweaked were now actually thinking cogently, building shelters and community. She still has not lost her fascination with your species.” 

The humans stared with dropped jaws, even Fury. That they owe their very lives to these people…?

Then they heard a strange sound, causing them to instinctively look over.

Loki was doubled over, laughing so hard that tears were rolling down his face; Thor’s face was red, stiff as he worked mightily to contain himself. He lost the battle, his laughter joining Loki’s.

A smile curved Odin’s lips as he watched the two ‘boys’. “I thought you would be amused,” he said, looking smugly pleased with himself. 

“That…that was a lie?” Tony gaped at the white-bearded man. “But you’re a king…” he nearly wailed, “You’re not supposed to be doing things like that!”

Odin chuckled. The rising tension dissipated quickly. “I merely came to check upon my children, to ensure they are well.” He strode to Loki and Thor. 

Loki was leaning on Thor, snickering into Thor’s chest. He was hiccupping lightly.

Odin leaned into Loki, whispering softly, “Oh, my child…he IS trying.” 

The Jotun’s laughter stopped. He looked side-eyed at the king, but said nothing, his face growing blank. 

The king sighed before clapping Thor on the shoulder. “Your mother worries, you should come see her sometime,” he said gruffly. 

Turning, he strode back to the rune-etched signal on the ground. 

“Sire…?” Sif called, looking back at Thor and Loki then the king in confusion. “What about the Jo…Prince Loki? Is nothing to be done about him?”

Odin paused mid-step then slowly—carefully—he placed his hovering foot back on the ground and pivoted. He was fully king at that moment. Even the humans felt it, an odd wave washing over them. Some SHIELD agents found themselves on their knees, hand to their hearts and head bowed. 

Loki’s face was politely quizzical. 

“Perhaps you should clarify as to what Prince Loki has done,” Odin said softly. There was something strange rising in his eye. 

Thor knew what that look in his father’s eye meant. 

Beside Loki, Thor stirred slightly. Whether to protect or protest, Loki wasn’t taking any chances. Expression still mildly curious, he elbowed Thor viciously in the ribs, doubling his husband over and silencing him.

Sif glanced over dismissively. She knew what she saw, Loki stole the Stone. He probably conspired with that mortal mage to steal it in the first place. Were it not for Thor, they probably would have succeeded. And she said as much to the All-Father, struggling to keep her voice level and not betray her gloating satisfaction. Even citing the two princes’ vicious fights while on Midgard. 

A thin, wintery smile curved Odin’s bewhiskered lips. There was a definite glint in the faded blue of his eye. It made Sif and the others nervous. 

As well it should.

“I am given to understand, you are accusing a Prince of the Realm of high theft, a member of my family of high treason and conspiracy?” Exquisitely polite was the All-Father’s tone and expression. “And just how did you come by such precise information? I thought only your brother had the ability to see great distances.” 

Sif’s eyes widened. Too late, did she see the pitfall she was rushing towards...she could feel the proverbial noose gently tightening around her neck. Anxiously she licked her lips, her eyes darting around for inspiration. “I…I…” she stammered.

“She was simply concerned,” Fandral interjected suavely, slick as ice, “for our dear friend, Prince Thor.” He spread his hands helplessly, looking noble, as if to ask, what else were loyal friends to do. “As were we all and so we hastened to his side.” 

Though Fandral was slick as ice, Loki came from a world where there were over a thousand names for ‘ice’. “Yes, but how were you able to ‘see’?” His smile was gentle…as gentle as a mother bilgesnipe protecting her young.

“I’ve got this, father,” Thor said sharply, stepping forward. 

Odin’s brows slowly arched at his son’s presumptuous tone but he forbore to comment and chose silence. Besides, he was curious as to what the boy had to say…though they definitely would be having a ‘talk’ later. 

“Ever have you whispered in mine ears grievances against Loki, accusing him of sly behavior and dishonorable practices, your words just shy of slanderous for which recompense must be paid. Because of our long history, fool that I was, I listened and began to eye him with much suspicion. I blame you not for my treatment of my wife, as I am a man and husband, and it my duty to protect and defend him from those that would do him harm. Yet, your tongues were so sly and deceitful, that I saw only the long years you have ever been at my side and took your counsel as truth, never seeing you as the lying pieces of offal that you are!”

Tony’s mouth slowly rounded in surprise. He really never thought Ole Thunderpants had it in him, but dude was casting old school shade like a pro.

“Ooooh, burn baby burn…” Clint whispered to Nat, his eyes shining with delight. Steve had a distressed face but refrained from interfering. 

Because it was clear Thor wasn’t finished.

“Thor…” Sif looked at first aghast at Thor before turning a murderous glare upon Loki. “He has inflamed your mind…” she burst out.

“Did I give you leave to speak?” Thor replied coolly, crossing beefy arms as he stared haughtily down his nose at the shieldmaiden.

Loki and Odin’s eyes met then they looked away. Both their mouths bore tiny smiles.

Sif’s mouth closed with an audible click, so shocked was she. Belated unease stirred in the eyes of the four former friends of the Crown Prince. “Your pardon, Thor,” Fandral drawled, bowing elaborately towards Thor. Sleek courtier that he was, he walked a fine line: that of the calm, indulgent patience of a parent to a small child throwing a tantrum. 

Loki could have told him that was the worse tactic to choose when Thor was in a temper.

Thor eyed the courtier until Fandral lost his vague air of amusement. Real unease sat firmly on the dashing Lord’s stylishly bearded face. “You find amusement in this, Lord Fandral?” Thor rumbled softly, his blue eyes fixed his erstwhile friend. “And you, Volstagg? Hogun? How think you, Lady Sif, hmm?”

All three named shook their heads quickly. 

Cold blue eyes drifted back to a now unsmiling, milk-white Fandral. “It would seem you are the only one that finds the fact that I wasted nearly the entirety of my marriage years listening to the words of a toadying fool, a grasping woman with delusions of being Queen,” his eyes rested on Sif, “a buffoon living on faded dreams of valor and a man desperate to belong.“ His eyes touched on Volstagg and Hogun, his meaning clear.

“Hommie, going in hard,” Tony whispered to Bruce, who nodded in agreement. The bearded inventor dearly wished he had a bucket of popcorn. He felt a nudge, and looking over, was Coulson blandly extending a bag of jelly beans while watching the ensuing drama. 

Both Bruce and Tony took a handful.

“It…it took time…time for me to see there were…mistruths in your words. As you had me test Loki, so I tested you. For you knew far too much of my private dealings to come by such knowledge honestly. Would it surprise you to know that you failed? At every turn, every testing…you failed.” Thor’s voice was stark, a quiet pain in his eyes and face at the betrayal of centuries of friendship with these four. “Worse, Lady Sif, is how you traded on the love of your brother.” 

“I think, perhaps, much deep reflection is needed on your parts,” he concluded soberly, his eyes grieving for what once was. “With my father’s leave,” Thor turned and bowed to the king, “I shall arrange suitable posting for each of you where I believe you shall have time for much introspection.” 

Then the Thunderer turned and went down on one knee before Loki. “Had I but listened to you, methinks much destruction could have been averted. Because I doubted, you have my apologies.”

Loki eyes were wide with a combination of pleased surprise and distinct unease. “Get up, you great lummock,” he hissed urgently to Thor. His thin fingers tugged vainly at the brawny shoulders of his husband.

A tiny smile played on Thor’s mouth. “Nay, wife…will you forgive mine ignorance and doubts?”

“Yes, now get up!” Loki growled at the spectacle Thor was making of himself. His thin cheeks were dark purple with embarrassment. He glared first at Thor, who easily bounced to his feet, then at the people watching them. Lifting his chin, he cast a haughty glance around as if it was an everyday occurrence that the Crown Prince of Asgard humbled himself in public.

“Thor…!” Sif couldn’t help the horrified sound that came from her mouth.

Thor whirled around, the skies overhead abruptly darkening along with the Thunderer’s face. “Say something…!” His hammer was pointed imperially at the shield-maiden. “Say. Something…” Thor growled, daring the woman to speak. 

“Forgive her, Your Highness,” Fandral stated smoothly, drawing Sif back and pushing her behind the other two. “She simply worries for your son, knowing you are wroth with her.”

Thor barked a laugh, his face full of derision. “My son? I have no son,” he stated calmly.

Volstagg blinked at this bit of royal renunciation. Though it hurt, what Thor had said about him, it hurt mainly because it was truth that was spoken. But this…this repudiation of his own son? A true innocent in this madness? This he could not and would not stand for. 

Drawing himself to his full height, he stepped forward and bent upon Thor an irate stare. His bristly beard seemed to puff out even more with his outrage. “Though you are my King’s son, you still have a duty to your child,” he stated sharply. Angrily he shook off Sif and Fandral’s anxious plucking at his sleeves. “Prince or not, you are still a warrior and a man…and a man must take responsibility of his child!”

The smile that curved all three royals’ faces made him step back in sudden unease. Thor’s attention drifted over his head. “Humans have an old saying, Lady Sif—confession is good for the soul.”

Not the sharpest weapon in the armory, Volstagg relied on his gut. It certainly was large enough. And it was telling him something was dreadfully amiss.

“I know not of what you speak,” Sif stated proudly, head held high. Yet there was a sick, pleading look in her dark eyes. Silence fell over the group as even the African workers and SHIELD agents paused, sensing the taut tension of the unfolding drama. “If you ever cared for me…do not speak!” she burst out. “Please Thor…!”

Thor wavered, eyes falling.

“The Queen mother laid a spell upon Thor before he was banished to insure he would produce no by-blows,” Amora stated in a bored, carrying voice. “It was revised so that Thor can only produce children with Loki.”

She turned a smirk on Loki and Thor. “You’re welcome…” And with that, she vanished, the cuffs on her wrists falling to the ground. 

Odin sighed to himself. Children today….Did she really think he was that witless? He gestured wearily with his staff. With a muffled whomp, and a sharp exclamation of surprise, Amora plopped back on the sandy ground on her rump, an astonished expression on her delicate, pretty face.

But no one was looking at that little drama. All attention was focused on the proud Lady Sif, whose tanned face now bore a sickly hue. 

“Sif…?” Volstagg said gently to the young woman, standing trembling in the loose semi-circle of the Warrior Three and the remaining soldiers. Everyone had taken a step away from her, as if she was the carrier of some fatal malady. 

A terrible anger, fueled by the prickling sense of betrayal, began to churn in Volstagg’s gut. 

Too many things, instances he had long dismissed, were clinking into place. Slowly his eyes drifted to the only other blonde that was a part of their fellowship. The one that had a difficult time keeping his braces tied in the presence of a beautiful or challenging conquest, be they male or female.

And in that moment of meeting Fandral’s calculating gaze, Volstagg realized just how far his companions had fallen—how far, they as a group, had fallen. Eyes closing slowly, Volstagg’s breath escaped him in a long sigh, his head lowered as the truth unfolded. Even his usually bristling red hair seemed to lose much of its vitality, becoming limp and lifeless. 

Too proud to bend her head, still all were witness to the silent tears that trickled down Sif’s face. 

Loki was unmoved by her undoing.

“She is such a lumpish baggage,” Amora remarked sotto voice to Loki. By dint of clever maneuvering, she made her way to the Jotun, belatedly realizing he had stolen the Stone from her. 

She had always made it a point to publically stay on the Jotun Prince’s good side. Unlike the rest of court, she had no objections to his race, and were he not married to Thor, she was quite sure they could have been, if not friends—certainly not enemies. But he was, and she needed the Stone back. She had spent the past three hundred years searching for the Reality Stone. 

Loki flicked a glance down at the blond-haired sorceress but refrained from speaking, preferring to observed his father-by-marriage leave-taking.

The Asgardian soldiers hurried to join him, while Sif and the Warrior Three slunk along and hid behind the soldiers. Despite everything, Fandral wore a confident smirk. Of old money, he was supremely confident his father’s power and influence would shield him. 

Odin observed the courtier’s expression and shook with silent laughter—he could only imagine the fun his Queen and her handmaidens would have with Fandral. By the time they’re finished with him, he shall beg for exile.

The wolves pressed against Loki’s legs, licking his hands before joining their master even as the ravens landed on Odin’s shoulders.

Fury stared suspiciously at the king. “That’s it?” he said in disbelief, though he couldn’t escape the pleased feeling that he had out-bluffed an alien king.

“Did you expect me to destroy your world if you did not give me the Stone?” Odin called politely, a grizzled brow rising. “Those days are gone.” With that, a shimmering light enveloped them and they vanished.

“That went well,” Tony remarked aloud. He glanced at Fury. “I didn’t think you had it in you…and gotta tell ya, I really didn’t think …”

Coulson strode up to Fury, his cool sangfroid shaken. “Sir, we have a problem…” He held up the empty case that had previously held the Stone. 

Fury looked one step away exploding. He glared impotently at Thor and Loki, before curtly ordering Doom and Amora to be ‘detained’ for questioning.

Loki barely gave the furious mortal a look, his gaze cast up to the sky. “Well played…” he murmured.

 

While many avoided SHIELD—particularly its director—Tony took delight in what he called, ‘just messing with the Sasquatch’. When asked to refrain, he blithely told Steve that Fury had been fucking with them for a long time…and payback’s a bitch.

When Steve was foolhardy enough to order Tony to desist, he discovered the hazards of living in a building built by a Stark and controlled by a Stark creation. 

After several days of malfunctions that apparently only happened to him (food burnt, doors wouldn’t open, shower spewing out ice water, etc) he finally called Fury and bluntly told the director, “You’re on your own”. 

 

Four days later, Loki and Thor entered the common room. There was a palpable air of tension between the two. It did not escape anyone’s notice that while Thor looked glum, Loki looked…almost happy.

“So, who pissed in your cereal and called it yak milk?” Typical Tony with his bluntness, treading where even angels feared. He looked at Thor then at Loki. “And clearly Thor didn’t get a happy but apparently you did.”

To his credit, Thor didn’t looked overly shocked, just more depressed. He had developed a simple tool to translate Midgardian slang when the All-Speak failed. “Nay, friend Tony, no one has urinated in my cereal as I have not broken fast,” he replied heavily then sighed. “But my consort’s time with me is nearly at an end which does not give me much happiness.”

Loki smiled slightly. 

There was a light in his eyes that Steve would have normally attributed to happiness but that look was too cautious and wary to be happiness. It was a look of one who had learned that happiness came at a cost, a cost one may not be able to pay.

“What my lord husband means is that in less than one week’s time, I shall be free.”

Thor’s face immediately stiffened, shutting down. He looked levelly at Loki, who stared back with a carefully neutral face. 

“Even now, when you would be free of my despised presence, you will not speak my name as if it poison to your lips were you to say it.” A muscle ticked in Thor’s jaw. There was a strange, pathos to him, a sudden weariness overtaking him. He bowed carefully to his consort. “By your leave, I shall take my leave from you so that you may enjoy this week as you please. There is much beauty upon Midgard I would have you see before your leave-taking.” He studied Loki’s face for an endless moment, his hand coming up to hover over his consort’s lines in a phantom caress. “Fare you well, Loki of Jotunheim; may the Norns ever bless your path.”

Loki’s face was a study of emotions. Guilt, anger, distrust, caution all flickered across the Jotun’s face in rapid succession. The Avengers felt an immediate guilt for watching, being fray adjacent to what clearly should be a private conversation. 

Red eyes flickered rapidly around the room. The Avengers were determinedly NOT staring at them…except for Tony, his eyes were bright with interest on them, absent-mindedly shoving food into his mouth.

Involuntarily Loki’s mouth quirked in a tiny grin of affectionate amusement. Glancing back at his husband, he invited Thor to share in his amusement with his eyes. His amusement faded at the deep well of unhappiness that lurked behind Thor’s carefully blank eyes. “Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere…privately,” he suggested quietly.

Thor shook his head, a painfully rueful smile curving his lips though his eyes remained darkened. “Why? It shall change nothing. You despise me…and you have just cause. Though of late I have tried to be a good husband to you, it cannot balance the years I was not a good husband or friend.” He tried to smile, though his eyes reflected his unhappy state. “Should you not wish to remain on Midgard, go back to Asgard, while away your remaining time there; and when your time is up, go to my father; the Casket of Ancient Winters shall be returned to Jotunheim as agreed.”

Loki’s brows contracted sharply. He inhaled sharply, eyes widening slightly. At Thor’s slight nod, he closed his eyes before slowly opening them. “Then I…shall take my leave of you,” he said at last, his voice quiet. He turned to go then hesitated, his face averted. 

“Thank you…Thor.” Loki hurried away leaving Thor looking stunned, yet with a look of hope dawning in his eyes.

“Hey Lokes, wait up...I’ve been working on a couple of things I thought you might be interested in,” Tony called and hurried after the Jotun prince, slinging an arm around Loki’s shoulders, which the Jotun promptly shrugged off. But Loki did wait for the others, a hint of pleased surprise in his eyes. 

Bruce, Clint and Steve followed, with talks of having a going away party for Loki.

Natasha watched the scene with narrowed eyes, the feeling that she had missed some vital clue was now gnawing at her. 

Trained by some of the best that took natural talent and honed it to a razor’s edge, her mind was telling her that she had missed something. What made her so good at extracting information was her uncanny ability to ‘read’ people: unconscious ticks, the minute hitch of breath or twitch of a finger or muscle, the slight tightening around a person’s eye or even the way they tilted their head. People gave off a wealth of information to the trained eye. 

It was a simple step to mentally shift her thought processes into the icy clarity of the Black Widow, and she reexamined every conversation and interaction witnessed by her eyes, comparing what was audibly spoken and the nonverbal cues given. It felt like she was trying to complete the puzzle with a wrong shaped piece. 

So the Widow’s let her mind drift, it was a trick she employed when she felt particularly stymied by a puzzle. It allowed her subconscious to silently work. Her eyes brushed over Thor then the hallway where Loki had disappeared companionably with Tony and the others. 

With Tony and the others….Her breath escaped her in a quiet sigh as the missing piece slotted into place.

Hearing that tiny sound, Thor half-turned and met her eyes calmly. In that long-held stare, a voiceless conversation took place. When it ended, there was something close to pity in Natasha’s eyes. 

Thor turned and left.

 

Later that night, Natasha stole out onto the outside veranda. Much like Loki, she unconsciously flowed from shadow to shadow, allowing them to cloak her movements. 

She was as silent as her namesake.

“It took me a long time to understand Loki, but by then it was too late, too much wrongdoing on my part had damaged the fragile trust my wife held towards me.” Thor’s voice was quiet, husky in the darkness. 

The Black Widow silently took a seat near the Asgardian, her posture unthreatening and open.

Thor let out a long sigh, before raising a sturdy, beer stein to his lips, it looked oddly delicate in his decidedly strong hand. 

“So you believed them rather than trust Loki,” was said without judgement by the Widow.

He stared out over the rail, his eyes not seeing the gorgeous cityscape view. The forgiving darkness brought a strange sort of intimacy. “You mortals cannot conceived the bonds of fellowship when you live and share the joys and triumphs with a person for several centuries. Save for Volstagg and Hogun, I had known Sif and Fandral since I was a small child, swinging my toy sword and playing at being a mighty warrior.” He swung dark, suddenly alien eyes to meet her impenetrable gaze. “I had known Loki all of one month ere we married. So yes, when they began whispering in my ear about Loki’s perfidies, I listened.”

“So when did you start suspecting them?”

“We were attending a feast, at my father’s request,” Thor’s mouth kicked up before he sobered, “Loki and I had been fighting, I was accusing him of behaving inappropriately with one of the MasterBuilders and likewise did he accuse me of behaving inappropriately with Lady Sif, Lady Lorelei and Lady Sarfine.” Thor flushed at the incredulous look Natasha gave him. He waved a hand in the air. “I was not…at least not with them,” he muttered under his breath. 

Natasha heard him and rolled her eyes.

“Fortunately Mother appeared and shooed me away to better settle Loki’s temper. When they reappeared, he was in better temper…and had changed from his Asgardian clothing into his Jotunheim clothing.” He glanced at Natasha. “Wearing Asgard attire always put him in a worse mood.” He looked away, staring back over the cityscape. “Later, Fandral came to me, a most serious and worrisome look on his face. He told me that he saw Loki out in the gardens with the MasterBuilder. Naturally incensed, I rushed to confront my wife and caught a glimpse of a slim black-haired figure darting away…clothed in Asgardian attire. When I turned, I beheld something in Fandral’s eyes that gave me pause.”

Thor took a long draught from the stein. “I said nothing and simply brushed past Fandral, but later than night, lying beside Loki I began to think. And because I could not bear to think my dearest companions were false to me however, that would mean that I had to be wrong. Yet part of me continued to question.” He smiled grimly. “So I sought to allay my suspicions.” His hand tightened ominously around the beer stein. “And they failed every test I put to them,” he said softly.

Silently the Widow absorbed what he said before abruptly switching subjects. “What was our purpose in your masterful plan?” 

Thor started, he gave her a rueful smile before glancing away from the spy’s penetrating gaze, now alerted to her true talent. “I needed you to be his friends and companions; to become a place of safety and solace to which he could retreat.” Thor emptied the stein, quietly putting it on the table before standing. 

In the near darkness, he loomed like a mountain as he looked down at the Widow. 

“Loki’s life has been one of hardship and struggle. On his realm, his size marks him as wrong, thus an outcast. It is with good reason he does not trust easily, especially people who profess friendship with me. The only one he took to is my lady Mother, Queen Frigga. She is much exacting and yet scrupulously fair…as are you all. I needed him to see that there are those of similar nature, who will take his side and grant him succor.”

“Did it ever occur to you that it could have backfired on you?” Natasha asked curiously. Sure, she was a little angry at how she and the others had been played. “That maybe I’ll tell Loki how you manipulated him, us?”

He shrugged unconcernedly, remarking candidly, “The outcome would have been the same, and required very little prodding on my part especially in regard to Son of Stark and Son of Banner, as their minds are very much like Loki’s.” He paused and looked away from the insightful eyes. “I failed him most grievously. Someday…someday I hope he will come to look upon me again with favor.”

“You’re in love with him,” Natasha breathed softly, her eyes widening at that sudden revelation.

Thor’s smile was achingly bittersweet. “Of course.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned, mentions of dub-con and/or mention of rape.

Two weeks later found Odin, Loki and a contingent of royal guards ready to descend upon Jotunheim. 

Laufey loomed with a coterie of warriors half-surrounding the BiFrost site. Never a patient individual in even the best of circumstances, he was even more impatient today. For over five hundred years, he had held on to the dwindling loyalty of his people with the promise of the return of the Casket to Jotunheim. 

That he had to trade his oldest son’s body did not cause him much concern. The boy was a runt and good for nothing. While such abnormalities were as useless as tits on a mountain, he had found a purpose for his son. A use that would increase the family’s status. 

His face—craggy as the ice-capped mountains of Jotunheim—was still though his red eyes pulsing with an inner fire. 

A tall Jotun, with tree trunk size arms and legs, stood slightly behind and to the side of Laufey. Likewise, his rock-hewn, face held no expression. War-Leader Evornir had long been wooed to Laufey’s side, shortly after the Great War. He had been among the few remaining war leaders that had survived. His cunning and ferocity was such that many warriors flocked to his banner. As such, he had brought many warriors to Laufey’s side. 

A reward for his support, Laufey had promised him Loki—to take as a mate or simple bed-sport. In normal times, this open exchange of Laufey’s runt would have been a shocking scandal, an outright affront to the gods. Now it barely caused a stir among the people struggling for survival. 

It was with outward cold patience that Evornir waited. While he waited, he ruminated on what he had been told about Laufey’s runt, about the boy’s talents. Laufey had indicated the runt had some skill in the bedroom.

He wondered how the boy would compare to the father. 

Though his face remained expressionless, a light kindled in the deep-set crimson eyes as salacious memories of pinning a snarling, furious Laufey to the ground and eventually forcing that obscenity spewing mouth to scream with pleasure. He stole a look at Laufey’s craggy face, recalling the many times he proved his strength against the other. Laughing as he made that big, strong body submit to him, forcing his way into Laufey’s warm insides and taking his pleasure. It was wildly intoxicating, taking that struggling, bucking body and leaving a weakly cursing Laufey sated and slick with his seed. 

Evornir felt his loins stir at the thought of once again sampling the delights between Laufey’s thighs. 

He slid a thoughtful glance at Laufey. Perhaps tomorrow, after he had sampled the son, he could steal into in the royal bedchamber and take Laufey before the other had time to muster a defense. A lewd smirk curled his lips at the obscene thought of having both father and son as his lovers.

As the skies above suddenly roil, his eyes snapped forward and his attention utterly focused. An oscillating, rainbow light slammed into the ground sending clouds of snow and shards of ice into the air. 

A low, throbbing growl rippled from gathered warriors throats at the sight of their hated enemies…Asgardians. 

Red eyes took on a new, vicious hardness—only prudence held the warriors still. None forgot that even when they had been in their prime, Asgard had defeated them.

Outwardly taking little notice of the towering Jotnars facing them, the Asgardian soldiers fanned out. Their eyes scanning the area for any active hostile threat. They surrounded Odin, protecting him with an unswerving zeal. Their readiness to battle the towering Jotnars was evident in the bristling weapons all sported. 

The bewhiskered face of Odin gazed calmly upon the land of his mother. A slow blink took in Laufey, the other looming Jotun and the ragtag group of common soldiers. When sharp ears heard the faint whimper from Loki, the old, canny king nodded thoughtfully to himself. 

He clamped a firm hand on Loki’s upper arm, and ignoring the stiff resistance, moved forward—Loki in one hand and the Casket of Ancient Winters tucked under his other arm.

“Hail, Laufey of Jotunheim, I greet thee,” he began formally. He ignored the sting of sharp nails working at his gloved hand, trying to pry his fingers loose. But if he could hold on to a giggling, squirming, naked-from-a-bath Thor, holding on to Loki presented little difficulties.

Loki felt panic beginning to claw at his mind at the sight to Evornir. One glimpse of the Jotun and he well knew what his father planned. Near mindless with terror, his only instinct was to escape the plans his father held for him. 

This would not be the first time his father gifted him to a warrior to whom he wished to sway to his side. It took nearly three months—even with his seidr—to heal himself from the last time. The internal damage…Loki shuddered, immediately shying away from those memories. His struggle took on a frantic desperation. He had to get away. 

And with the torc around his neck—undoubtedly Frigga’s foul work—restricting his magic, he would die this time. He was defenseless for he knew his father’s cruel eyes had not failed to note the torc around his neck. He shuddered at the slow, cruel smile that curved his father’s thin lips.

“Greetings to thee, Odin, King of Asgard,” Laufey replied grudgingly. Damned he would be if he called that one-eyed fool ‘All-Father’. Only by the sternest control did he refrain from spitting on the ground between Odin’s feet.

None of Odin’s thoughts were reflected in either his eye or face—only the calm of centuries of stewarding Asgard. However, beneath the layers of beard, he smirked.

“As agreed, and witnessed by the Norns, I return to thee the Casket of Ancient Winters—Jotunheim’s Treasure—as agreed and witnessed by the Norns, thy son. He has served admirably and nobly…he is a credit to thy house and Jotunheim.” Odin inclined his head regally, his eyes and face steady and calm.

Laufey absently gave a short nod, his intent gaze fixed hungrily on the Casket of Ancient Winters that Odin cradled in his arm. With it in his possession, he would have the ability to restore Jotunheim back to its former greatness, make it once again among the glittering jewels upon the World Tree…and it would cement his position as King. The loyalty of the people would solely belong to him because they would know that it was only his skillful brokering that the Casket was returned home. After all, did he not sacrifice his son to the predacious Aesirs?

With the Casket in his firm grip, those that incited rebellion against him would finally be silenced. 

One way or the other.

Additionally, he could do away with that runt he got off of Faubauti and any other that were a threat to him. Even with only Helbindi’s visible presence, none could prove otherwise, that it was his seed that was defective. He had made doubly sure of that. Silencing the first wavering cries of all the others he had birthed. Evornir had quietly dispose of the weak, inferior things. 

The two visibly acknowledged warriors he allowed to breed him, Helbindi and Byleister’s sires, came from among the finest families that bred strong, hardy warriors. Furthermore, it allowed him to cement two more powerful alliances. Those two families backed his intent to rule Jotunheim.

He was unchallenged to claim the throne, king in all but name, soon all would be forced to bend knee and call him King Laufey.

Eyes hooded, Laufey eyed Odin and the Asgardian soldiers. Once his people were strong enough, he would lead them to further victory, thus insuring their unswerving loyalty to the new line of rulers of Jotunheim. 

Odin read all of Laufey’s lofty ambitions in the Jotun’s craggy face and once again thanked the Norns for his clever wife. 

“Give it to me…” Laufey held out a presumptuous hand, struggling mightily to keep the triumph and hatred from his face. 

The All-Father calmly handed the Casket to Laufey. Loki moaned low in his throat, abandoning all pretense at discretion to openly struggle against the All-Father’s grip. 

Laufey flicked a glance at his soldiers. “Grab him,” he ordered absently, his attention returning to the Casket. 

Reverently—hands trembling—he opened it.

All the Jotnar gaped as blue, swirling light spilled gently from within the casket. Every Jotnar in attendance could feel a harmonious song, a joyous rising melody that sang within them. 

Home…

Heart hammering in his chest with excitement and adrenaline, visions of his people bowing to him, Laufey slammed the lid closed. 

A low moan of desolation rose from the gathered Jotnar. Other than cocking his head, Odin’s face remained unmoved.

A snarling, kicking and clawing Loki was dragged closer to his sire and future mate. His snarling took on notes of increasing desperation.

Evornir smiled slightly at the sight, a light flickering in his eyes as he watched the futilely struggling runt. Unconsciously he licked his lips. This one would be a tight fit…he could hardly wait. Absently he adjusted himself.

“Are all the terms satisfied, Laufey, Consort of the Former King Faubauti?” Odin interrupted the fierce stare Laufey bent upon Loki. “Have Asgard fulfilled the agreement to thy satisfaction, returned Jotunheim’s Treasure back to Jotunheim as witnessed by Yggdrasil’s Daughters, the Norns?”

At this odd phrasing, Laufey’s eyes shot to the coolly composed face of the All-Father. For the moment, all thoughts of beating his son into bloody submission were set aside as his clever mind struggled to decipher the meaning behind Old One-Eye. 

But under the Norns watchful eyes, there was nothing Odin could possibly do. Suspicious, his gaze swung to his defiant, trembling son then back to Odin before he grinned savagely, gripping the Casket in possessive hands. No, he made sure there was no room for dissembling by Odin Spear-Breaker when they first set the terms of the contract. He had spent precious coins to consult with the law-givers of Alfheim to insure such. “The terms have been fulfilled. Jotunheim’s Treasure has been returned to me.”

Unseen under his beard, Odin’s mouth curved in a vicious smile. “Then we shall take our leave.” Odin inclined his head and did an about face to return to the BiFrost site.

Loki turned a desperate, disbelieving face to the man that had been kind to him. During the years of his marriage to Thor, both Odin and Frigga had quietly offered support, comfort and sage advice; they protected him from the worse of Thor’s temper, often publically taking a stance, making their displeasure known to both Thor and the court. 

Now, to be cast back into hell after he had tasted paradise…? Despite his determination to remain strong, a frantic, “Odin, please…!” spilled from his lips. His eyes glistened wetly, his chest ached—filled with panicky desperation—while his thin fingers trembled, stretched towards the Aesir king.

Turning, Odin hesitated before swiftly crossing to where Loki stood, gripped by one of Laufey’s men. Taking no notice of the hulking warrior that towered over them, Odin clasped Loki’s face in his big strong hands. 

“Oh, Little One, it has been a blessing to have such a charming treasure as you have been upon Asgard,” he said quietly, the affectionate nickname falling easily from his lips. He stared hard at the boy, willing Loki’s understanding. He could not, dare not go against the Norns ruling. He grasped the thin fingers in his and pressed his lips to Loki’s knuckles. His heart was heavy for what he was doing, feeling the fine tremors that beset those clever fingers. “However, your place is here, little treasure, upon Jotunheim.” Clasping Loki by the nape, he pulled the boy closer and gently kissed Loki on the forehead before turning and walking away. 

As he stood in the circle of the BiFrost runes, Odin looked at Loki, his face composed. “The contract must be fulfilled, I cannot free you,” he replied then blinked. The Asgardian party was swept up in a swirling kaleidoscope of colors.

“No…” Loki whispered, staring at where the Asgardians had vanished. “No…”

With unexpected strength, he wrenched himself away from his captor and gathering all his shaky strength, he defiantly faced his father. “No…” He well knew the consequences, but better a clean death with honor than the agonizing death his father planned. Evornir would split him in two should the massive, lumpish Jotun take him to bed.

Under the luminous, ever changing sky marked by harsh winds, unnoticed, wisps of seidr began wafting from a pair of tightly clenched fists. 

Laufey laughed coarsely, and after a few seconds the others slavishly followed. “What do you think you’re gonna do, boy?” 

At that familiar growled tone, Loki hunched smaller and instinctively looked down. He missed the huge hand that seemed to swing lazily in the air before connecting with his head. With a loud, pain-filled grunt, he was launched several feet into the air before coming down hard on his shoulder. There was an audible crack, the sound of something breaking. Loki’s breath left him with an explosive shrill sound. 

Evornir smiled slowly, his eyes glinting with a savage light.

Laufey calmly lumbered over and picked his son up by the hair. Loki dangled, feet kicking wildly as his hand flew to his hair in an effort to relieve the tearing pressure. His face was twisted in a grimace of pain. “I asked you a question, you mealy-mouth, stupid runt…”

Despite the pain, a twisted in a parody of a smile broke out on Loki’s face as he stilled. His teeth were bared in a bloody grin. There was something in the boy’s eyes that gave Laufey paused, made him draw back his head suspiciously. 

But it was too late.

“This…” Forming an ice dagger, Loki shoved it in his father’s eye. Laufey gave a harsh bellow of pain and rage, instinctively the source of his pain away. Like a feral Earth cat, Loki managed to twist in mid-air to land on his feet, his smile now one of vicious triumph. “And this…” Between one breath and the next, he vanished.

And forgotten in the snow, lay the golden torc where he had landed the first time. Unnoticed, the unbreakable metal…had a jagged break. Had anyone bothered to examine the torc, they would have noticed where the break was, the metal had been deliberately weaken.

It took some time for Laufey to stop bellowing his pain to the uncaring sky. One of his men, in an effort to curry favor, tried to assist and paid the price. He lay lifeless in the ice and snow, his blood crystalizing in the icy cold. 

Climbing shakily back to his feet—hand clutched to his gore-ruined eye—Laufey strode back to where the Casket sat on the frozen ground where he left it. He was determined not to allow that useless mongrel any satisfaction.

He was glad to see no one dared to touch it, though he wasn’t that surprised. He had been very busy sowing disinformation about the ‘curse’ on the Casket. All of Jotunheim believed that it was death for anyone other than a member of the royal House to use the Casket of Ancient Winters. 

This, naturally, increased the fervor on the part of the rebels to oust him from power before the Casket could be returned to Jotunheim. They feared what a Laufey, backed by the Casket, could do to Jotunheim—as well they should.

However, the rebels just received a reprieve. 

First on his ‘To Do’ list was dealing with his son. Dark were Laufey’s thoughts on what he would do to Loki.

Picking up the Casket, Laufey held it for several seconds, savoring the feeling of impending victory over his many enemies. Numbered among his enemies as Evornir. Laufey had dark plans for the hulking Jotun that included chains and whips. 

“Come,” he ordered over his shoulder, his voice harsh with pulses of pain, “we return in triumphant.” His smile was a fierce slash on his dark, blood splatter face. 

 

Some distant realms away, Odin stood beside Heimdall. He rocked back and forth on his heels, an unholy smirk on his face. “Well…?” he demanded impatiently.

“Patience, my king,” Heimdall replied absently as he sought the ice realm of Jotunheim. Calm, golden eyes narrowed their focus, finally locating Laufey. 

The Jotun stood upon the rubble outside the Seat of Jotunheim. There was a throng of people at his back that had answered his imperious summons. While many were sycophants or curiosity seekers, there were a few, rare loyalists to the royal house. They had grimly served Laufey, if only to provide some form of continuality and stability to their broken realm. 

“He is opening the Casket…” the Gatekeeper reported stolidly, his eyes unblinking as he gazed upon the Jotun. 

Laufey opened the Casket with great ceremony and issued his first command. Several luminous, wispy tendrils slowly rose from the Casket and seemed to grope the air. 

“….and it’s not working.” 

What Laufey lacked was intimate knowledge of how the Casket of Ancient Winter worked. A secret Faubauti made damn sure to keep behind his teeth. 

Only those born to the royal House shared in the secret…that only a blood-royal, descended from the first king of Jotunheim could wield the Casket of Ancient Winter with any degree of assurance. 

One that the Casket itself recognized…that Odin and Frigga had made damn sure would be Loki.

“Oh, very well done, sire.” An amused half-smile tugged at Heimdall’s mouth at the outraged bellow of Odin’s name from Laufey.

“And the boy…? How is he?” Though Odin’s face was hardened against emotion, he unconsciously held his breath, fearful of the news.

Heimdall flicked a glance at his king then at the ‘boy’. “He seems to have familiarized himself with the palace and the hidden tunnels under the castle. He has made himself quite a comfortable nest.” His shoulders shook as his sight turned to Loki. “Apparently he’s taken the opportunity to liberate several objects from both Laufey and bottles of Alfheimr Summer wine from the Slovna Province, a cloak apparently from Muspellheimr as well as several cases of black grapes from Svartalfheim. He’s also ‘found’ several well-made knives of Dwarven design.” 

With each object spoken, Odin’s brows rose higher and higher as the items were quite costly. His low opinion of Laufey sank even lower. The Jotun people were already scraping for food and Laufey somehow had enough coins to purchase such outer-realm luxuries.

“The fool…” Odin closed his eye and shakily exhaled before recalling his moment of triumph. Rubbing his hands with glee, Odin impulsively danced in place before remembering his dignity. Now properly somber, and hands folded behind his back, Odin strolled to where his carriage awaited.

 

Several weeks later, and growing increasingly desperate, as the rebellions—sensing a weakness—grew in intensity. They were getting closer to the capital, their ranks swelling as they strode closer to the capital. 

Laufey, grown desperate to prove his legitimacy, again tried to use the Casket of Ancient Winters. With Evornir dead—a freak ice storm, the likes of which Jotunheim had not seen in centuries had struck the burly warrior—so went the soldiers he had commanded. Not that Laufey was too upset about Evornir’s death as the other Jotun had begun pressuring him for a more permanent and public union. 

Laufey knew he would not soon survive such a union with a treacherous, conniving Jotun as Evornir.

This would be his fourth attempt.

With a select group of priests—the corrupt few that supported his claim—and other sycophants in a half-circle around him, he opened the Casket with great ceremony. Laufey bent his mind grimly to the task of mastering Casket’s and forcing its compliance.

Unbeknownst to him, there was another watching the proceedings. From his perch atop the Seat of Jotunheim, Loki had an excellent view of the grounds below. It was a hiding spot he had found many years ago. It provided him a near perfect view of the surrounding terrain, however, the angle was such that while he could see them, no one at ground level could see him.

The thing that many people did not comprehend, or simply failed to notice was, like most powerful objects of ‘magical’ nature—Mjolnir or Gungir, Odin’s spear—there exist in such objects a kind of latent intelligence. 

This was likewise true of the Casket. And the Casket did not take too kindly to Laufey’s ham-fisted attempts to force its compliance. 

This time, the Casket exploded in an eye-searing cloud of light that enveloped the area several feet from where it was dropped. The light was startling bright that all the people that came to watch (and secretly hope for Laufey’s failure) stumbled back with startled screams and averted eyes. 

Against their closed lids, light seemed to oscillate. There was a sense of presence, a palpable aura of menace rode the air. 

Then it was gone. 

The Casket’s lid shutting with an audible snap of finality. 

The watchers didn’t bother turning around, they simply exercised both lungs and legs to put distance between them and the Casket. 

And unnoticed were two piles of bones that had once been healthy and hardy Jotnar—Laufey and Helbindi.

From his hidden perch, Loki was the only one to actually witness the glowing blue-white bird that had erupted from the Casket….And the only one to see the creature’s solid blue eyes focus upon Laufey, Helbindi. 

If he had to sum up the expression on the creature’s face it would be akin to ‘Not you again…’ It reminded him of the tired, ill-tempered look Fury often gave Stark. 

Except in this case, the creature could apparently kill a person with its eyes.

Once the light receded, it was with a slow blink that Loki shook himself from his dazed shock. There was a thoughtful look in his eyes.

Because before the creature retreated back into the Casket, it had bent its long neck and stared at him. Caught by those eyes, he could not look away…until it winked. 

Loki peered down again, to make certain his eyes hadn’t deceived him. But he could see the three mounds of bones in the snow below. Laufey and Helbindi were truly gone. The expressions of utter terror on their faces, mouths agape in silent screams spoke eloquently of pain and terror. 

He smiled slowly then softly began to laugh. He had things to do…according to the Casket.

The babbling sounds of shock then horror from those that had gathered floated easily to his ears. He watched placidly as they scattered, putting distance between them and the Casket. 

The Casket of Ancient Winters remained where it fell. 

While no one was quite sure what happened to Laufey and Helbindi, no one wanted that same degree of uncertainty to befall them. 

 

Several days later the Casket was gone from where it had fell, and mysteriously was found in the temple alcove where it once reposed centuries ago. The tiny footprints leading up to the temple scared the people as a rumor rapidly made the rounds that the Casket had somehow gotten up and had walked there. 

Dozens of families that lived near the temple promptly packed their meager possessions and moved. They could deal with much but drew the line at walking Caskets. 

Which means no one saw the light that periodically flared in the ruined temple as the Casket set out to teach its Chosen what Loki needed to know about his realm and the Casket. 

It was only several months later that people began noticing that the ceaseless harsh winds that scoured Jotunheim begun to slow. In the succeeding months, the winds slowed even further, becoming gentle sighing breezes. 

For the first time in centuries, the sound of children laughter could be heard outside. 

The elders stumbled outside, hands lifted in silent wonder as joyful tears ran down their faces as the stars and skies became visible for the first time since the Casket had been taken from their world. 

By the end of the year, once frozen rivers began to trickle with water. One Jotun, exploring their renewed world, reported that he saw a tuft of grass in a valley. 

Though the throne of Jotunheim was still vacant, its people slowly began to believe their world was returning—their king walked the lands.

 

Initially, Loki had met with much resistance and the rebellions had initially continued. But a large majority of that disappeared when the Bifrost began opening and closing all over Jotunheim, leaving behind wagonloads of food for the starving people. 

The remaining rebels lost all support from the people of Jotunheim when the trade embargo was removed. 

Negotiations began with other realms (Odin had only promised an introduction). Frigga’s faith in Loki’s cleverness was aptly rewarded as the young king somehow managed to play the various realms off of each other. He even managed to negotiate a dwarven trade agreement by which not only did they pay handsomely for the rights to _jastrar_ ore but he also negotiated a huge, substantial discount to purchase dwarven metal goods in bulk. 

And it wasn’t just dwarven goods that he managed to negotiated favorable deals for Jotunheim; those that thought they would take advantage of a novice king found the young king inscrutable and wickedly shrewd. During his time in Asgard, Loki had put his highly inquisitive mind to work. Affecting bored dissatisfaction had been highly effective. By making it appear a punishment, few questioned why he attended various sessions of Odin’s trade negotiations. 

This stood him in good stead when brokering Jotunheim’s own trade agreements. Many walked away from the table with grudging respect for the young king.

Thus, the realm slowly and desperately inched its way from the gaping jaws of death. The people of Jotunheim were surprisingly sanguine. They had a king that worked alongside them in repairing homes, mending nets—a king that worked himself to exhaustion to put their world to rights.

 

 

Nine Years Later

It had been some years since Thor had last seen his mortal allies. 

By the standards of his people, it was a brief moment in time but it was one that began a significant changes in the Crown Prince of Asgard. Gone was the adventure loving, reckless warrior, instead he was seen with his father’s councilors, with his father, learning and receiving council. Involving himself in Asgard’s politics…caring about their realm. 

It caused tongues to wag because the Crown Prince was no longer accompanied by his usual four companions. Which lead to the people to speculation that perhaps it was his so-called friends that were the problem. While the people of Asgard loved their prince, they loved even more that Thor was no longer behaving like a heedless youth and was taking an interest in Asgard.

Unspoken was the fear that had Thor not decided to ‘grow-up’ Asgard would have had a feckless king upon its throne. While no one knew where the rumors had gotten started—that it had been the Sif and the Warrior Three who had held such a terrible sway upon the royal prince—but it quickly gained strength, leading many to nod wisely that it had been those four that had led the prince from the path of righteousness. 

Any protestations on the part of said prince were met with commiserating pats and knowing looks dealing with Thor’s loyalty towards his former friends. It made him all the more the ‘long-suffering and betrayed tragic hero’.

 

Now trudging to the Observatory for his weekly report on Loki, Thor’s thoughts were far from the events of nine years ago. He had gone from receiving daily reports about how his former wife was faring to weekly. Today he did not anticipate anything different, save for the fact that Loki was doing well. 

Head down, he did not see the amused quirk that played on Heimdall’s mouth. “Do you see him…?” he asked quietly, standing beside Heimdall as if he also could see what the Gatekeeper saw. “How is he doing? Is he eating right?” He hesitated before asking in a small voice, “Is he still happy?”

He had been asking this and similar questions for the better part of nine years as his former wife had been busy making numerous changes on Jotunheim. 

But he did notice the escaping sound from the Gatekeeper’s mouth. 

“He awaits you upon Midgard,” said Heimdall. At the disbelieving look Thor gave him, he said helpfully, “There’s a sign…‘Tell that stupid oaf I’m ready!’”

The disbelieving look then dawning smile on his prince’s face made him finally give in to the laughter that tickled his insides. “Go…he awaits you within the Child of Stark’s Tower,” he said through deep guffaws. 

Sliding his great-sword in the lock, Heimdall activated the BiFrost. Thor ran and jumped. Utterly forgetting his dignity as Crown Prince in his haste, he gave a loud, exuberant caroling shout that faded as he was carried away.

Landing on the Tower, Thor hurried down the stairs and burst into the common room. All the Avengers as well as Pepper and Coulson’s eyes immediately left the movie to focus on the Asgardian that bounded into the room. 

“S’bout damn time,” Tony muttered under his breathe. He rolled his eyes at the displeased look Pepper gave him and busied himself with tossing back a shot. That only made the displeasure in her eyes grow. He forgot he wasn’t supposed to be drinking.

“It is about time…” Loki sniped irritably, glaring at his former husband. He yelped when a jubilant Thor dashed forward and drew him into a hug. “Put me down, you great, lumbering lout!” He made excellent use of his powers to bounce a rock off Thor’s head. 

Tony yelped and threw himself from his chair seeing a rock heading his way. “Who does that…!” he exclaimed incredulously and threw a heated look Loki’s way.

When Thor finally let Loki go, the Jotun made a big production of smoothing his garments and hair while stealing looks at Thor’s beaming face. He scowled fiercely though he couldn’t deny the burst of something warm and mushy in his chest. 

Despite the others assuring him nothing was wrong medically, he wasn’t quite sure he liked being warm or the mushy feeling. He wasn’t quite sure if they knew what they were talking about, but decided on a policy of ‘wait and see’. If they were wrong, he would bring upon them a terrible vengeance (except for the Lady Pepper and Coulson as he was exceedingly fond of them). The others were warriors and able to take a punch or two.

Thor’s eyes drank in the presence of Loki. Indeed, Heimdall was correct, Loki was looking much better. Gone was the haunted look about his former wife’s face and eyes. Gone as well, were the sharp planes on his face and body as well as the lines of discontent. 

Loki looked…happy.

Aesir pale and dressed in the fashion of a Midgardian, Loki was almost indistinguishable for one. Thor swallowed hard against the aching feeling of loneliness.

“So, I have been reading about Midgardian’s customs on courting,” Loki announced haughtily, his nose in the air. He eyed his former husband with ill-favor. He did not approve of the lines on Thor’s face nor the dark circles around his eyes. This simply would not do.

Tucking his hands behind his back, Loki adopted a pinched, severe expression. “And…I have decided you shall be allowed to court me.” A look of dawning happiness on Thor’s face, Loki’s fingers twitched with the instinct to stab. Firmly he curbed such desire, though when Thor reached out to grab him again, he was unable to corral his impulse. His knife blinked in and out so fast that most did not noticed. Loki shot a bland look at Coulson who merely sighed. Making it look quite casual, Loki dropped his knife to the floor. It was entirely by coincidence that it fell close to Stark.

“We shall go on dates…” Loki glanced side-long at Natasha who crossed her arms calmly. Pepper gave him an encouraging smile.

Gaining confidence, Loki squared his shoulders and stared regally at his former husband. “On these dates, we shall talk and get to know one another. Pepper has given me to understand that in exchange for these dates, you are to bring bribes in the form of expensive gifts.” 

“Not bribes,” Pepper muttered resentfully under her breath, a long-standing argument between her and Loki. For once in his life, Tony had exercised truly heroic strength and refused to be drawn into the argument. 

Looking calm and totally in control, Loki continued to present his version of ‘dating rules’. “These items will consist of flowers, jewelry and other items. You will consult with the good Ladies Pepper and Natasha as to the best places to obtain such items. Lady Pepper has indicated a certain fondness for Jacob’s jewels. In addition, Steven has introduced me to chocolate and ice cream, I will also require expensive chocolate and ice cream…JARVIS will direct you where to buy such delicacies.” Loki waved airily at the last bit, while the stuff Steven had was good, he felt better could be procured. 

“Of course, Prince Loki,” JARVIS replied cordially. The AI already had a list, approved by Ms. Potts, of places Prince Thor could procure suitable bribes. 

“Yes, Loki…” Thor hid his amusement behind a wide beaming smile. He already had a drawer of rings, necklaces, torc, belts, toe-rings, earrings and nose-rings that he had designed for Loki—on the off chance his former wife would do him the great honor of marrying him again. 

“After I have determined your bribes are of sufficient value, I may,” at this Thor beamed all the wider, so Loki added, with a crushing, severe stare, “or may not, look upon your suit favorably. Naturally, I will keep all bribes.” 

Thor ignored all the rest, he had heard enough to know he was getting another chance. He stretched forth his arms as if to hug Loki again, but drooped at the flat, incredulous stare he received. 

However, both Clint and Tony gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up behind Loki’s back so he assumed all would be well. 

“Come Thor, we shall discuss additional details of your courtship,” Loki stated briskly before turning and strolling away. Thrilled to be given another chance, Thor trotted obediently after Loki, grinning from ear to ear. 

“Oh, he’s, like, the poster boy of ‘totally whipped’,” Tony remarked idly from his comfortable position now on the couch where they had been watching Loki lay down the law to Thor. “It’s kinda pathetic, that’s what it is,” he complained mildly. “A big guy like that…”

“Tony…” Pepper turned to her significant other, an abstract look on her face, “you do remember that I’ll be out of the country tomorrow? I just wanted to make sure you that you remember I’ll be taking the jet as there’s a problem in Japan that requires my personal attention.”

Tony frowned, his eyes darkening with upset. “But…but Pepper…I was planning on taking it to Jamaica,” he whined. “I wanted to show the gang the new beach house I bought and I thought we’d chill there for a week or two.”

A tiny frown pulled at Pepper’s flawless, smooth brow. “So let me understand…you want to fly your friends to Jamaica, where you will all have fun and undoubtedly get drunk rather than allow me to take the jet, conduct SI business—the opposite of fun, mind you—and make more money for both you and your company? Even though I told you about my plans last week? Do I understand you correctly?” Her set face dared him to say yes. 

“Uhm…no? I…want…you to…take the jet?” Tony replied hesitantly, his brown eyes wide with incipient alarm. And as that response cleared her face, he rapidly expanded on the theme that he was in the process of buying another jet—a custom designed jet—just for her. It would be tailored to her specific tastes, naturally. 

Like that, the sun broke out on Pepper’s face. “Oh, Tony…” she sighed, giving him a sweet kiss on the cheek, “Don’t be silly, I don’t need my own personal jet, I’m perfectly happy to share with you.” Giving him another kiss, and smiling at his fatuous expression, Pepper pushed herself from the couch and sauntered away on a pair of stiletto heels.

Once she was gone, a disgruntled look settled on the genius inventor’s face. Seeing that look, Clint’s smirk grew. “Tell me again, who’s the poster boy of ‘whipped’?”

Infuriated, Tony pointed a finger at the archer. His mouth opened and closed, for once at a loss for words. “You….shut up,” he said weakly and stomped away to the sound of Clint’s laughter ringing in his ears. He needed the comforting familiarity of his workshop where he could do manly things like blow shit up.

And plan his revenge on Clint. 

 

Four days later, at breakfast, there was a shrill scream from the vents and the sound of someone moving hastily. Tony had a quiet smile on his face when the vent by the doorway popped open and Clint tumbled out. His face was white, his eyes round with fear as he darted away from the opened vent.

“Clint…?” Natasha’s eyes were cold and alert, a gun in her hand as she eased, cat-like, from her place at the counter. Clint darted behind her, eyes still wide with fright.

Tony bent his head, his shoulders shaking silently. 

Loki’s eyes darted to the mortal before his shoulders relaxed. 

Five seconds later several round objects dropped from the opened vent. One landed on the counter near Steve, who yelped and scrambled away as the object’s unfolded into the shape of a spider. 

All of the spider-like things headed towards Clint, front two legs held up towards the archer who continued to cower behind Natasha.

The mandibles parted and from each of the creature came a single word, “Daddy…”

“Oh, look Thor, that one has a bow and quiver on its back,” Loki cooed as he peered over at the smallest little spider.

Tony burst out laughing. 

“That’s not funny, Stark!” Clint shouted angrily at the inventor as he danced away from the reaching legs. He made a disgusted face and forgot where he was standing. “You know I hate spiders…”

“Really?” Natasha remarked calmly, vanishing her gun as she turned to Clint, a flinty, dangerous look in her eyes. 

Manfully refraining from flinching, Clint ignored the tugging on his pants in favor of cozening up to the only spider he could tolerate. “Except you, my little snug-bug.” Tentatively he put his arm around her waist and essayed a sweet, little-boy smile on his lover and best friend.

Slowly she smiled in return…and applied a Widow Bite to his side. 

Watching Clint jiggle then slowly keel over, this time Loki joined Tony in laughing. 

“Still not…funny…Stark,” Clint managed to rasped out. Unfortunately now he was level with the spider-bots that quickly climbed him and happily began bouncing amid cheerful chirps of ‘Daddy!’.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ending...

Epilogue

 

Some five years after the reunion of Loki and Thor (which was the talk of three realms—Vanaheim, Asgard and Jotunheim—as King Loki led Prince Thor on a highly visible and hilarious chase to prove his devotion) the Avengers received the highly sought-out, engraved invitations to the wedding of King Loki of Jotunheim to the Crown Prince of Asgard, Thor. There were a bunch of other names after ‘Thor’ but Tony was more excited that he was finally going off planet. He was actually going to see ‘Aliens’! Real, honest to god aliens! (He flatly denied the girlish shriek when the invitations appeared). Even JARVIS was going along with Dummy, You and Butterfingers. In fact, the AI and the three bots received their invitations before the humans. Dummy had been tapped to be the ring bearer and You and Butterfingers would be the flower children. All three of the bots were pretty much useless after that, consumed with practicing their roles in the wedding.

That Fury also received an invitation came as a surprise to many (except Coulson) who had felt it incumbent that Loki and Fury bury the hatchet.

As such, he had had a quiet chat with Loki. When Loki expressed an interest in burying said hatchet…in Fury’s head, Coulson gave him the Look. And since Coulson agreed to be the wedding organizer (outraging just about Asgardian court dame who had been viciously in-fighting for just such an honor—even if it was that disgusting Jotun’s wedding), Loki had put up only a token argument before grudgingly sending an invitation.

Loki held firm to his resolution to send Fury one of the special ones that he had spent much time in crafting. The director received a perfectly ordinary paper invitation that said ‘You can come but you can’t bring a +1’ (the ‘So there!’ was very much strongly implied).

It made Loki feel marginally better.

Steve already knew the two would wed, despite Loki making Thor chase him from one end of the universe to the other (Tony called it being the King of Passive-Aggressiveness).

During the five year courtship, Loki had taken to kidnapping Steve to the icen realm. At first, Steve couldn’t figure out why. Loki would grandly introduce him to all and sundry of the planet, parade him from one end of the planet to the other.

Steve was usually forewarned of the ‘kidnapping’ by several lines of frost on his window (the first time Loki arrived unannounced, he received a shield to his face as well as a spinning flash kick to his head before he was subjected to a stern lecture about the benefit of a a verbal warning). Each day, a line would disappear until the final day the lines would rearrange themselves, in essence saying ‘I’m coming’. At which time, Steve would politely inform the Avengers and SHIELD if they would clear his schedule as he would be ‘kidnapped’ later that day.

Steve had mentioned, more than once, that Loki could simply invite him, but Loki didn’t see the fun and excitement and he felt Steve deserved fun in his life. The lines of frost was his way of compromising.

Not that Steve didn’t mind going to Jotunheim, it was a really nice planet with very polite people and interesting features. The children he absolutely loved. He had hundreds of drawing of people, fauna and flora along with his personal favorite, one he simply called ‘Loki at Rest’.

(It started out as just a sketch of Loki, caught unawares and curled up sleeping. The tense lines that usually bracketed the diminutive Jotun’s mouth or rested between his brows had been smoothed away, revealing a smooth countenance of rare, delicate beauty that was usually hidden behind either a disagreeable expression or a hard, cold mask.

Upon hearing about the engagement, he spent almost two years turning his drawing into a painting. Working with oils had never quite interested him before, he had known what his gift to them would be.)

It was only on the fifth ‘kidnapping’ did Steve put his size thirteen foot down and adamantly insist upon an explanation. When Loki became mulish, Steve drew the only weapon he found useful on Loki: Disappointed Stare, Four Point Five (Loki was made of sterner stuff than Tony).

Loki folded like wet (though strong) cardboard.

It was why Loki had reacted so strangely when they first met so many years ago and why Loki was shoving him under the nose of just about every Jotnar on the planet.

No fool, Loki only decided to introduce Steve only after he solidified his claim upon Jotunheim via the Casket. He quite liked Steve, however, he loved being king even more.

Centuries past, long before the war between Asgard and Jotunheim came to its vicious, bloody conclusion, the icen realm had lost a valuable member of their religious sect, a Third-Tier Priest by the name of Mroden. He, along with a select few of the priesthood, had cautioned temperance as the stirring of unrest among the people grew steadily louder.

A very select group felt Jotunheim should take its ‘rightful’ place among the Nine Realms rather than remain an subordinate of Asgard and tamely accept what the Realm Eternal chose, in its infinite mercy, to dole out.

What had made the insurrectionists words so seductive was the very obvious fact that Jotunheim was becoming rather overcrowded.

Mroden had advocated openness and communication with Asgard in regard to the rapidly expanding population of Jotunheim and their reason to find another realm to colonize.

Unsurprisingly enough, his views were not popular among the people nor the temple (which had, for a very sizable ‘contribution’ subtly aligned with the insurrectionists). Yet, the king listened to the Third-Tier priest. None could fathom why the king would listen to such a lowly one as Mroden.

The answer had lay long-forgotten in the temple’s past.

All priests, upon giving their lives to the temple, wore veils and robes that obscured any identifying marks. In fact, some felt their calling so strongly, they went through an agonizing process of having familial lines seared from their bodies to emphasize their absolute neutrality in all issues brought before them.

Upon entering the priesthood, one priest took the name Mroden from the pool of names and even went so far as to have his lines seared from his body. Upon donning the robe and veil of a supplicant, he had simply disappeared among the other such clothed.

His piety was so great, his love for all of Jotunheim, that against all odds, he became the true Heart of Jotunheim, albeit very few knew only the wise and ancient High Priest that had taken his vow.

Over the centuries, a new High Priest took over, overtly obtaining the ceremonial title of Heart of Jotunheim. He worked in conjunction with the King to minister the land and people. It had long became an empty title, with no tangible link to the Casket itself, for like his father before him, King Faubauti maintained the only known link.

Which was why King Faubauti felt safe in ignoring the High Priest’s advocacy to invade Midgard. In favor of listening to Mroden.

It was through his link with the Casket that Faubauti understood the full truth of Third-Tier Priest Mroden.

Born a runt, he was Ashan, First Born…and Faubauti’s older brother.

All runts were given over to the temple in the first days of their births…to live or die. If they lived, and the family wanted their runt, they were returned to their families; if the family didn’t want the child, he was quietly accepted into the temple as a servant—where it was assumed most died.

Mroden had been very much wanted by his fathers. But as he grew, he felt called elsewhere and fought to enter the priesthood despite his body’s limitations.

There he flourished and lived until his stubborn obstinacy ‘for the good of Jotunheim’ became a problem. He had been taken by secret paths to Midgard, there to be put to death.

And there his remains had laid for centuries.

A curious human had found the moldering remains of some obscure creature and sold it. The moldering remains eventually made their way into the hands of one Dr. Erkstine—who created a remarkable serum extract from the remains of the Heart of Jotunheim.

A unique serum that was injected into one Steven Grant Rogers…and Steve matched many of the very qualities for which Mroden had died.

Mroden whereabouts had been a mystery for centuries (mourned secretly by one).

When Loki met Steve, blood called to blood.  Which confused him as the mortal looked very much...different.  However, he was also a mage, so he looked further and found within the mortal-born something that should have been impossible--he found the last sliver of the Heart of Jotunheim.  All quietly residing in the soul of a fragile mortal.

Now linked to the Casket, he knew he would do much to ensure that final sliver survived; and fueled by his own instinct, he also knew he would do much to ensure and maintain his own self-interests. Which was why, as he paraded Steven around, he made sure everyone knew it was only by HIS doing that the Heart of Jotunheim was able to return and only he knew the paths to find it.

Privately, however, he advised Steve to remain on Earth.

By now, Steve was wise to Loki and his manipulative tricks. “Visiting is fine,” he had said gently to his friend. “You know I still don’t quite like the cold.” The relief in Loki’s eyes made it worth it and the slow smile that dawned solidified his decision.

 

  

The wedding of Prince Thor Odinson to King Loki of Jotunheim was THE event of the century for every realm that owed fealty to Asgard and even those that did not. Several assassinations were quietly hushed due to certain people somehow receiving invitations that were not on the list of attendees (Coulson felt he had given people sufficient warning, and if they chose not to listen; Frigga gave excellent advice).

To the furious envy of many of the court ladies, both Natasha and Lady Amora (who received a pardon) were chosen to be Loki’s intimate, personal attendants; a gleeful Clint and a reluctantly impressed Fury were chosen as Thor’s honor guard.

Tony and Pepper were both selected by Loki as his ‘handmaids’ which made the inventor roll his eyes and sigh before quipping that he was NOT wearing ‘any fugly dress’—but reserved the right to change his mind depending on what the dress looked like.

He swaggered, radiating supreme confidence as he strutted down the aisle in his attire. Bearded like most Asgardians, save for his height, he looked very much like them. He also had learned to radiated a dangerous aura.

For his outfit, Loki had chosen an ornate gold leather and red silk top was tucked into a wide black band. From the band that encircled his waist draped a gold embossed leather skirt-like bottom that hung heavy around his trim hips and covered his ass. It flared dramatically with his every step. Consisting of two panels in the front and two in the back, the open sides revealed tight crimson silk-leather pants that dovetailed into a pair of deep crimson ankle boots.

At his side, Pepper walked with the cool confidence of a woman that knew her worth, a smile on her face and eyes thoroughly calm. Her stride every bit as arrogant as Tony’s. Her attire was very much similar to Tony’s except hers had been delicately softened. Everywhere there was silk, was lace. The bottom of her garb came down to her knees. Her outfit was simply a feminine version of Tony. Both looked striking in their garb, warriors in truth as well as deed.

Clint and Fury, waiting on the steps before the altar were chagrined. They were totally outclassed by the pageantry of Loki’s chosen…which was exactly how the Jotun King intended. He much desired to send a message to Asgard, especially the dismal showing of his first ceremony to Thor.

This time, all eyes were firmly focused this upcoming union.

He had even sent invitations to Sif, Hogun, Volstagg and Fandal. He wanted them to see their prince chose to marry him (“…and rub their faces in it?” Tony had wryly quipped to which Loki smirked).

Of course, he sent the invitations late to ensure the four fools would not have time to take necessary precautions, such as cleaning themselves up.

When the doors next opened, Captain Steve Rogers of Midgard had the privilege of escorting a solemn-faced Loki down the aisle to an equally solemn, yet misty-eyed Thor.

This wedding was a far cry from their first wedding. Another wedding would take place on Jotunheim, where Steve would officiate.

It would forever silence the old guard, Laufey’s cronies and cement Loki’s power. After all, the Heart of Jotunheim was anointing his marriage and blessing his union with Asgard.

And if Loki was seen wiping away tears…it was his wedding day, he would cry if he wanted!

 

 

Far away, across the vast empty blackness of space, through innumerable galaxies light-years away from the Asgard realm—lay an array of glittering distant stars. It provided a scant illumination to the floating ring of a broken asteroid.

“My lord, how is your hand?”

Teeth a startling white against the rich, purple-green hue of his brutal face, the humanoid grinned horrifically as he looked down from his superior height at the other being. “Fine…fine,” he replied carelessly, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. Specifically on a slender, blue figure that had taken his prize and escaped with it.

The boy had spirit…he liked them with spirit. Their breaking was much more satisfyingly.

The brutal smile that curved Thanos lips echoed in his deep-set, flat eyes.

He began making plans…he had time.

 


	8. Epilogue...part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just an ad-lib and apology for being so slow in completing the story.

Two years later…

 

They were in the middle of a furious battle with Dr. Doom, the Red Skull and the Shocker, who had improbably teamed up for some inexplicable reason.

With Doom deploying his decoys, it made for extremely hard-going for the Avengers. 

Steve breathed raggedly, but soldiered on. Iron Man was on the ground, fighting hand-to-hand…which told him the full story of the suit’s ability. He didn’t even need to see the damage to know Tony was now incapable of flight.

And considering Thor was still in Asgard, that presented a small problem.

“We have to contain them,” he panted in his comm even as he flung his shield in a parallel intercept course towards a Black Widow who was getting mobbed. Whirling, he flipped in the air, his foot neatly nailing a Doombot. He didn’t bother to check its status before launching himself at another Doombot, his arm automatically extending to catch his returning shield. 

“Tell me…some…thing…I don’t…know,” Tony grunted out. He sank to one knee, his hands raised protectively under the barrage of energy bolts the Shocker was firing at him. “Okay, JARVIS, give me something I can use,” his voice was nonchalant, giving no hint to his bone-deep tiredness or pain. He was reasonably sure he had at least two broken ribs and his collarbone hurt like a bitch.

“Well, Sir…” came the smooth mellow tones of the AI, “he has to recharge and it takes him point fourteen seconds to do so after each blast. If you step back just before he fires, I estimate you will have a thirty percent chance of firing at him and affecting his powers.”

“Oh, those numbers are not good, but I’ll try it any how seeing as this is LIFE OR DEATH, my life and my death, just in case you were wondering.” Tony’s mind was going a mile a minute, words spilling off his tongue with absent flare. “Hey, see if the repulsors are charged yet? Can I fly?”

He was all too conscious that his lack of flying was getting them hammered. But he had little choice in the matter. He no idea when the repulsors would cut out again and he preferred not to find out when he was hundreds of feet in the air.

“Steve…Steve…!” A weight impacted Steve’s chest, forcing him back several steps. He choked, spitting out the familiar strands of black from his mouth. Automatically, his arms came around, holding the weight against his chest. “He’s mad this time…very mad!” Loki exclaimed, even as he shot a wide-eyed look over his shoulder for his pursuer.

“Hey Lokes…we’re like, right in the middle of getting our asses kicked, so unless you plan on helping, you might wanna let go of your snuggle-buddy before you really get his ass kicked.” Clint’s voice was famously dry and laconic in the comm. He knew Loki could hear him.

Steve rolled his eyes, but suddenly swung Loki behind him and raised his shield just in time to block a bolt from either a Doombot or Dr. Doom himself. “Loki, you need to get to safety,” he forced calm to his voice. No need to panic his friend, Loki had enough on his plate right now.

The Red Skull cackled delightedly at the sight of Rogers trying to protect someone. He only caught a glimpse, but that was all he needed. Dress, slim legs and long, black hair translated into female. In that instant, he knew he had won. Killing the person Rogers was trying to protect would shatter the American icon. “Concentrate on the woman,” he ordered to the other two, Doom and Shocker. Turning his attention back to Captain America, his smile was ugly. “I win, Captain America.” The sneer of his lips was vicious.

Behind his mask, Doom arched a brow. He peered closer, trying to see the person behind Captain America. There was something teasingly familiar about that person. He shrugged before deciding to follow as Red Skull asked. 

No one orders Doom.

Frowning, Loki peered over Steve’s shoulder. “Steve…” His voice was a low whine, a bid for attention like the fingers that plucked at the soldier’s uniform. 

“Get to the Tower,” Steve said through gritted teeth, “We’ll talk later, alright? Right now, I have to deal with this.”

Well-groomed brows shot up. “Very well…” Loki sighed before waving a hand in the air.

Doom slammed painfully hard into the ground. The sickening snap of his leg was loud as was the resulting scream of pain. He blacked out. 

Something invisible grabbed the startled Red Skull’s foot, dangled him in the air and then proceeded to treat him as a badly behaving rag doll by slamming him repeatedly left and right on the ground. He lost conscious and was carelessly dropped.

The Shocker, seeing the conditions of his fellow evil-doers hastily raised his hands in the international gesture of surrender….thus leaving his vulnerable middle wide open. His scream as he was punted into the air faded after a while. A plume of dust rose in the distance when he came crashing down.

The Avengers stared, frozen with disbelief.

As did the people watching and recording the fight. 

Tony’s helm opened. His face was dazed. “I think I speak for all of us when I say, what the fuck…?”

Loki ignored the stirring around him as he circled back to Steve’s front. “Can we talk now?” he asked impatiently, glaring at the man with a degree of disfavor. “I am being chased…”

Steve blinked, struggling to refocus on the matter at hand. “Chased…?” he asked dumbly. Then he shook his head briskly, focusing on Loki. Shoving his cowl from his head, he smiled gently at the fractious alien. “What’s the problem?”

As Loki opened his mouth, the clouds above darkened ominously. “Too late,” Loki said sourly before neatly skipping back behind Steve.

A blinding light slammed into the ground. “LOKI…!” Though the cry sounded familiar, there was a certain timbre missing. Steve could feel Loki shaking against his back. Then a figure picked their way from the light.

“Thor…” Tony could only goggle, recognizing instantly the Thunder God. 

“Oh, Loki…” Steve said in despair, he manfully refrained from laughing, but it was a close call. He could hear Clint having hysteric over the comms.

“Well, he was behaving like an ass…” Loki shrugged, “So I thought I would make him one.” There was an undercurrent of laughter in the mischievous voice.

Thor stomped, or tried to, but it was difficult balancing and using four hooves instead of feet. He tripped, flipping head over feet with a bellow of incoherent sound.

Tony openly lost it, falling himself as he gave way to pained laughter. 

Natasha struggled mightily but the sight of Thor, a frown of concentration on his face struggling to coordinate four hooves to get upright, undid her. Her laughter was unexpectedly high and girly, the rippling, melodic laughter of a Disney princess.

While a smug Loki settled in his room at the Tower, enjoyed being pampered, loved and cherished the inhabitants (chief among them, JARVIS) the video of Thor went viral…it remain the top, most watched Youtube video for almost a month. 

 

Though Thor fought half-heartedly, he didn’t put much effort in it which is why their first child was named Steven.

**Author's Note:**

> So if you see any major glaring errors, please leave me a note. Trying to self-beta this and I've forgotten how difficult it is. Story is finished, just need to hopefully avoid any major glaring problems. Please also note that any and all views expressed in this story are definitely not views I hold.


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